by Blythe Baker
She blinked at me. Really? How could a fox possibly be better than a human companion?
“You and I share something deeper than I ever could with someone else,” I said. “A connection unlike any other I’ve experienced. We’re closer than friends, closer than family. It’s like…we’re part of one another, you know? When I thought you were hurt at the graveyard, it was like an attack on me directly.”
I can understand, I suppose, Athena said, the end of her tail slowly moving back and forth. When that man was threatening you, I became quite defensive myself. As little as I am capable of in the magical sphere, I knew I had to do something to protect you, even at a cost to myself.
“See what I mean?” I said. “And you’re always here with me and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I always appreciate your company, your advice, even your criticism. It’s like you’re my conscience in physical form.”
She reached out and touched me with her paw. I’m rather fond of you too, Marianne.
I smiled as I stroked her behind the ears. Immediately, her eyes shut and she started to make that almost purring sound like a kitten.
“So, what sounds good for dinner?” I asked, crawling off the bed and walking toward the fridge. “Chicken? Tuna? Salmon?”
I grinned as Athena hopped down off the bed and wandered toward me.
You choose, she said. As long as I can have some milk too.
Life was starting to get back to normal.
17
“You know,” I said as Athena and I strolled through the forest the next day. “There’s something I keep thinking about that Isabella Delvin said before she disappeared…”
It was a bright, sunny day. Summer was in full swing; the cicadas were singing in the heat, the tourists were splashing around in the lake, and hot air balloons filled the sky with brilliant shades of colors.
What part, exactly? Athena asked. She was roaming along among the trees and out of sight, since vacationers were hiking along the trail and we’d passed three or four groups already.
“She mentioned she knew my mother,” I said. “She said I looked just like her. I guess she recognized the color of my eyes.”
They are very unique, Athena said. She didn’t mention anything else, though, correct?
“No…” I said, kicking a broken tree limb off the path. “And that’s the most frustrating part.”
I heard the rustle of branches above and looked up just in time to catch sight of Athena’s tail as she jumped to the tree beside me. I wondered whether normal foxes could climb trees and scurry around among the branches or if this was unique to Athena.
Well, where would you start looking to learn more? Athena asked. No one seems to know who your mother or father was. And if they were some of the only faeries around, then it’s likely a lot of others won’t know anything about them, either.
“I don’t know…” I said. “If I could just figure out their names, then that would probably be enough.” I ran my hand through my hair, twirling the ends around my fingers thoughtfully. “I guess I’m gonna have to see if the library has any records or old newspaper articles about missing or former residents. Start there.”
Or perhaps Bliss could find something in that guildhall library of hers, Athena said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I wish I was allowed to go there.”
Too dangerous, Athena said.
“I know…” I agreed.
I took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the pine trees. They were fragrant in the summer heat. The sky overhead was a bright, clear blue. Ravens cawed as they flew above the forest.
This was home now. It had been weeks since I’d missed my old home in Missouri. I missed my mom, sure, but the longer I stayed here, the more I connected with this place, the more I realized just how much I belonged.
“Well…I guess it’s easier to relax knowing that horrible ghost is gone,” I said. “Or rather, the horrible form of that ghost. I still feel bad about Isabella and what she went through…”
Athena said. You aren’t responsible for her decision thirty years ago.
“I know,” I said. “It’s just sad that she felt like that was her only way out.”
I smiled, in spite of those thoughts.
“It’s strange to me that even after everything I’ve gone through here, I’m still as comfortable and at home as I am,” I said. “I haven’t once felt like I wanted to pack up and move out.”
It’s because you truly do belong here, Athena said. I’ve known as much. The forest…it senses you. It recognizes the magic within you.
I looked around at all the ancient trees towering around me. A sense of peace washed through me as I allowed myself a moment to just be where I was. I listened to the sound of the dirt path crunching beneath my feet. I heard the wind’s whispers through the tree branches. Birds in the distance sang their songs in a beautiful chorus and the scent of the earth was like coming home.
“Something is happening, though…” I said. “Something is moving. I don’t know if it’s in protest of my return, or I’m somehow causing it, but…”
I thought back to Dr. Valerio’s and Cain Blackburn’s conversations with me. Both, completely separate of one another, had warned me that something was amiss in Faerywood Falls.
I’ve sensed it as well, Athena said. It’s as if the sleepy town is starting to awaken after a long, long slumber.
I came to the top of a hill that overlooked the lake. In the distance, I saw my aunt’s lodge. Beyond, I knew the town was nestled in the valley surrounded by the mountains.
A chill ran down my spine.
“Something tells me there’s going to be more than a spell weaver trying to cover her tracks, or a man scheming to get rid of his wife.” I said. “There are people in town with a lot of power who are genuinely worried about whatever’s coming next.” I shivered. “And then there’s that missing spell book of Silvia Griffin’s. I still haven’t forgotten it’s out there. I have a feeling we haven’t seen the last of Delilah Griffin, either. Just what we need. More things to worry about.”
I think it’s wise to be cautious, Athena said. But it isn’t going to do you any good to stew on things and worry about them when you have no power to control them.
“But what if I do?” I asked. “What if the bad things awakening are all because of me? Wouldn’t it just be better if – ”
Don’t finish that sentence, she said.
I saw her peek her face out from the tree and she made her way down the branches before jumping and landing on the path beside me.
She looked up at me, her gaze intense.
You just said that you were meant to be here. And if you are the first faery to return in such a long time, then there’s no doubt you’ll be needed in whatever is coming.
“But…what if I fail?” I said. “I don’t know anything. I don’t have anyone to help me – ”
I will help you, Athena said. And so will your aunt. And your cousin. And I dare say that Dr. Valerio and Cain Blackburn will also help you. You aren’t alone in this. We may not understand the things about faeries but we can understand you. And that’s far more important.
I knelt down and petted her between the ears.
“Thanks, Athena…” I said with a smile.
And with that, we headed off down the trail back toward our cabin, to face whatever it was that might, or might not, come.
Continue following the Mountain Magic Mysteries in Book 3: A Dangerous Deceit in Faerywood Falls.
Excerpt
From “A Dangerous Deceit in Faerywood Falls”
The first hints of autumn appeared in Faerywood Falls a lot earlier than I’d expected. The daylight hours were still long and warm; kids still swam in the lake, and the park in the middle of downtown was bustling with people, including a farmers market every Saturday morning and a family movie night on Wednesday evenings.
The nights, however, were cooler. There was a bite to the air that hadn’t been there since I’d first mo
ved into the area.
The mountains in the far distance were capped with fresh snow, and every day it looked as if it was slowly making its way down the mountains. I heard visitors to the shops discussing when their children would be back in school, and how nice it would be to get back to some sort of regular schedule.
The people in Faerywood Falls were perking up, as well. Fall meant the tourists started to head home. At least the ones that had been here for the whole summer. The change of the leaves and the chill in the air in the months to come would bring a different breed of visitor.
I thought I could figure out what that kind was, exactly…what with Halloween just around the corner.
Life had been quiet for the majority of the summer. I worked at Abe’s Antiques for five days out of the week (he insisted I take another day off, and told me I was working too hard). On most evenings, I’d go see my aunt and cousin at their lodge up on the hill overlooking the lake. I’d help clean rooms, prepare meals, and enjoy time with my family.
Things in Faerywood Falls had been peaceful.
Even among the magical, Gifted population.
Bliss, my cousin who was just over a year younger than I was, kept me up to date with all of the information within the magical sphere. The spell weavers were enjoying the fact they could study the night sky, and many were working furiously to dry herbs and flowers for their potions in the winter when they couldn’t get the ingredients fresh.
I heard very little about the werewolves or vampires, and I was okay with that…for the most part. To my own confusion and embarrassment, I found my mind drifting toward the tall, dark, and handsome Cain Blackburn, the head of the vampire clan that lived in Faerywood Falls. He was flirtatious and charming, and I never knew if he actually meant what he said.
I’d only run into him a few times in the last few weeks, one of which was when he’d wandered into a café I’d discovered late one night, all mysterious smiles and glances.
He wasn’t the only one who kept appearing in my thoughts. Dr. Lucan Valerio, the town’s noted bank owner and leader of the werewolf pack, also captivated my thoughts from time to time. He visited the antique store almost every week, and he’d linger and talk to me about anything and everything. Even though I knew he was a werewolf, something in me seemed to trust him more than Cain…whose entire species lived on the lifeblood pumping through the veins of humans like me.
The curious string of murders in Faerywood Falls had led me to the doorsteps of these men, and into their lives. Whether or not they wanted me to be there, I had no idea, but I knew for sure that they both were well out of my league, both in stature and in Cain’s case, probably age.
Even still…there was no harm in admiring them from afar, right?
They weren’t the only mystery I was attempting to unravel. Since moving to Faerywood Falls, I’d discovered that I was not only adopted but also a faery. And no one had any idea who my biological parents were. My mom had found me in a basket in the forest near my aunt’s place, and had adopted me.
If I was going to ever figure out the faery part of me, then I was going to have to discover who my birth parents were. And the only hint I’d gotten about them was by meeting a ghost earlier in the summer who had commented that I looked a lot like my mother.
This mystery had brought me to city hall in the middle of downtown Faerywood Falls.
Downtown really may have been a bit of a stretch. It was more like a row of densely arranged buildings along a couple of streets. The town’s local grocery store was here, along with the bank, the elementary and high schools , and the town’s only gas station.
It also boasted a government building with the statue out front of a T. Michael Forest, who apparently was the person who founded the town not long after the United States started heading west in its earlier days. This building housed not only the city hall, but also the tax collector, courthouse, and jail all in one.
It was here that I found myself pouring over documents on a perfectly nice Friday afternoon.
The sun was on its descent toward the horizon, filling the small, dull room I was sitting in with long shadows that stretched out from the floor to ceiling bookcases, filing cabinets, and the solitary table and rickety chair I was using.
A stack of examined documents and folders were stacked on the far side of the table. Newspapers from years gone by were well organized in some plastic bins behind me, but the idea of combing through years of weekly newspapers was enough to give me a headache.
It was more like a last resort than anything.
Like in most other government buildings, I found that a lot of the records here had not yet been digitalized. Names, dates, places, events…all those things were documented from about 2005 and on, but almost everything before that was still kept in physical form in this room; the room with no pictures hanging on the drab beige walls, where dust motes floated in the air, suspended in the streams of sunlight piercing its way through the venetian blinds.
Unfortunately for me, those records before 2005 were the things I was looking for, and while the categorized system may have made sense to someone who’d made it, I felt like I would’ve had more luck just pulling things off the shelf at random.
I was just making my way through a folder deemed Noteworthy Accolades when the room’s metal door that was painted the same color as the rest of the walls swung open, and a frail, pasty woman squeezed in.
I looked up from a long list of people who’d won the annual award for the town’s log carving competition to see the woman staring down at me with beady eyes behind her jeweled glasses. The gold chain attached to her frames swung as she pulled them off her face.
“I’m sorry, Miss, what did you say were the names of the people you’re looking for?”
She was one of the clerks that worked at city hall and had allowed me to look through the public records in this room. I didn’t think that anyone had actually been in here for some time, considering the musty smell and layers of dust on everything.
I sighed as I closed the book of achievements and pushed it away. “I didn’t,” I said. “That’s the problem. I don’t know what their names were.”
“I see,” the woman said in her mousy voice. “I was wondering if you might’ve had a revelation while sitting here cooped up all afternoon.”
“Not yet, no,” I said. “Unfortunately.”
“You said they lived here in Faerywood Falls at one point in time, right?” the woman asked, stepping toward one of the filing cabinets.
I nodded. “At least they did when I was born.”
“But no one has seen these people since then?” the woman asked.
“Not that I know of, no,” I said.
I hadn’t been brave enough to ask anyone outside of my own family if they knew who my father or mother had been. If I did, then it might give away my identity as a faery. According to my cousin, faeries hadn’t been seen in Faerywood Falls for many, many years. If anyone were to find out that I was one, it might be dangerous for me. I wasn’t sure if people would try to take advantage of the powers that I had hardly any knowledge of, or if they’d see me as a threat in some way. Either possibility, though, was bad. No one aside from my cousin, my aunt, and my pet fox Athena knew the truth.
“Have you considered looking at the death records?” the woman asked, turning to me. There was a streak of grey hair near her temples that was hardly noticeable among all her pale blonde hair, but the sunlight caught it just right, making it look silver.
I paused, considering. “No, I hadn’t,” I said. “I guess it’s possible…”
What if my mother somehow died the year I was born? It would explain her absence, and maybe even the reason why she’d left me out in the forest to begin with. Had she hoped someone would find me?
Or what about my father? Maybe he’d been the one to leave my basket out.
Regardless of who left me in the forest, it was a good place to start.
“Sure, why don’t we try…t
he year I was born?” I said.
I rattled the year off to her, and she wandered over to another set of charcoal grey filing cabinets. I watched as she pulled the middle drawer open and deftly flicked through file after file, muttering underneath her breath as she worked.
“Ah, yes, here it is,” she said, plucking a manila card from the drawer. She flipped it over and scanned the back before replacing it back in the drawer.
She turned and headed back through the bookshelves behind me.
A few minutes later, she returned with a reinforced cardboard box in her arms, which she set down directly in front of me.
I looked up at her. “Is this all from that year?” I asked, my heart sinking.
“Oh, heavens, no,” the woman said, popping the top off the box. She reached inside and pulled out a yellow spiral bound book. She set it down in front of me. “These are the death records from that year.”
I frowned. “There are so many pages in this book.”
The woman shrugged.
I flipped open the book. I opened it to a death certificate for an Aaron Anderson. “Well, at least they’re alphabetical,” I said.
The man’s picture was in the top left corner of the document as well, along with important information about him; social security number, address, and living kin at the time of his death.
“It’s kind of sad, seeing a life summed up like this…” I said, flipping to the next page, for an Alice Anderson. She was apparently Aaron’s cousin.
“Yes, well, I’m sure you won’t feel quite so nostalgic when you’ve looked through all those pages,” the clerk with the jeweled glasses said. She started toward the door, and then stopped just as she was turning the handle. “So…who were these people to you, if you don’t mind me asking?”
I looked up from Andrew Anderson’s page. That poor family had lost three people in one year. “My parents,” I said.
The woman’s brow furrowed. “And you don’t know their names?” she asked.
