by Amy Boyles
Pepper
Betty’s voice dragged me away from the article I was reading about porpoises that could walk on land.
“Well, what’ve y’all found so far?” she asked with her hands on her hips and looking awfully demanding.
I sat at the dining room table, staring at a magical screen filled with news articles. I had lost track of how many ridiculous stories I had read that day. Before the porpoises, I read one about poisonous lipstick that could kill. The title of the article had been, “The Kiss of Death,” and rightly so.
I rubbed my tired eyes. “Betty, unless you think a sea creature ate a piece of the heart, fed it to his friends and they are all slowly making their way ashore to defeat humanity and save the earth, I’m pretty sure I haven’t come up with anything.”
Betty scratched her chin. “Hmmm. I’ve heard of crazier stories.”
“Well, I haven’t.” I rose, rubbing at the kinks that were knotting up my neck. “Betty, how in the heck are we supposed to find something? We’re reading all these crazy stories. How will we know which one is the right one?”
Amelia glanced up from her screen. “I found one today about a wizard with a thumb so green he made a vine shoot all the way to the clouds. Could that be because of the heart?”
Betty shook her head. “Too fairy-tale sounding. Here’s the thing, kids.” She pulled out her pipe and clamped it between her teeth, reminding me of Popeye. “What y’all are looking for is a gift that turns sour, something that seems great but ain’t. Got it?”
I exhaled a shot of air that made my fringe of bangs blow up. “No, not really.” I gestured toward the door. “Why don’t we just go out there and search?”
“Because that’s what those vampires are doing,” she growled. “And if we encounter one of them, they won’t be nice. They’ll be mean and nasty and will definitely attack us. They want the heart, and if we stand in their way, we’ll be in deep guacamole.”
“I like how you kept your language clean,” Amelia said proudly. “Very fancy.”
Betty scowled. “I’m not trying to keep my language clean for you, girl. I’m just trying to convey what’s at stake, what’s really going on. We start following vampires and we’ll have a bigger problem on our hands than just missing pieces of the heart fire.”
“But that’s what it will come down to,” I said. “Blake Calhoun will stop at nothing to get his hands on the heart. It belongs to us. That means he will attack. He will come for us. At one point or another we’ll need to be ready.”
Amelia whimpered in protest.
Ignoring her, I pressed my knuckles onto the table. “I won’t stop searching for the heart until I have it”—my gaze fluttered to Cordelia, Amelia and Betty—“and I hope y’all feel the same way.”
“I do,” Cordelia said defiantly. “The heart is ours.”
I stared at the scrolling magical news that was too insane to be believed. “So I guess that means we get back to work. But Betty, how do we know when we find something that’s worth investigating?”
She pressed a finger to one nostril and blew a plume of smoke out from the other one. “You’ll know. You’ll feel it in here.” Betty tapped her chest. “The feeling will ring all the way to your bones. That’s when we go look.”
I hadn’t experienced that feeling yet. Walking porpoises definitely didn’t give me any pangs in my chest.
I stretched my arms over my head. “All right. Back at then, huh?”
The door opened, and I turned around. Axel strode in, his jaw tight, his shoulders stretched back. A dark cloud covered his face.
Instinctively I reached for him. “What is it?”
Axel took my hand and pressed it to his cheek. His skin warmed me all the way to my bones. A sense of calm washed over me.
Axel smiled grimly. He lifted his other hand and flexed his fingers. An article from the Magical World News flared to life.
“What’s that?” Amelia said.
Axel pointed to the page. “That is where one piece of our missing heart has gone.”
My breath caught in the back of my throat. “Seriously?”
“I believe so.” Axel stepped back. “Take a look for yourselves.”
Betty waddled forward, her eyes glittering with interest. “Well, well, well. Lookie there. Axel, I think you’re right. Looks like you might’ve found our first piece of the heart fire.”
I peered at the words, my eyes narrowing. As I read the story, chills swept down my spine. If this was the feeling Betty had been describing, then I experienced it in spades.
I tightened my grip on Axel’s hand. “Looks like we need to start packing.”
Blissful
“I understand your concern.” Roan took me by the shoulders and studied me, his dark eyes full of worry. “We won’t go if you don’t want, but personally I can’t leave someone in trouble. If this is a possession, then we need to go.”
I cringed. “But are you ready for that? You’ve trained some, but to face off against a demon is a huge deal.”
“I’ll make sure we’re protected,” he said. “You don’t have to come.”
His offer was supposed to make me feel better, but it made me feel like a coward. “It might not even be a demon. The people could be exaggerating.”
He rocked his head from side to side. “Could be. You know,” his voice teased, “the only way we’ll find out is to see for ourselves.”
“You really put the obvious in the word obvious.”
He smirked, his dark eyes twinkling with mischief. “Good thing I’m useful for something.”
We stood in Roan’s amazing kitchen at the inn. Breakfast had been cleaned up, and he was baking bread for the night’s supper. The scents of warm yeast and honey trickled up my nose. I wanted to wrap myself in a blanket made only of smells, the scents were so delicious.
Roan washed his hands and slid his palms over my neck. “We go in, see if there’s any help we can offer. If we can’t, then we use our resources and contact someone who can.”
My lower lip trembled.
“You don’t have to go,” Roan said, his eyes darkening. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
I scoffed. Right. Like the last thing I was going to do was back away from a challenge. I was the freaking town ghost hunter, for goodness’ sake. I had to be strong. I had to push aside my own fears and witness this for myself.
“Okay.” I exhaled a shot of air. “I’ll go.”
Roan’s face filled with doubt. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
I scoffed. “Just a second ago you wanted me there.”
He brushed his palms down my arms. “We’re a team, but I still worry about you.”
I made my voice strong. “Nothing will happen to me.”
I hoped.
He wagged a finger, getting all serious. “First sign of danger, you’re out. You sense anything strange and we’re gone, okay?”
I nodded. “I’m out, I understand.”
Roan grabbed a towel and whipped it toward my rear end. “Let’s get out of here for a little bit and walk around, release some of this nervous energy. We don’t need to meet these people with any doubt or strange thoughts in our heads.”
I nodded. “You’re right.”
“Are you bringing Ruth and Alice?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want anything to happen to them. Can you imagine if Alice ended up possessed? We’d probably drown in booties at the store.”
Roan cackled. “You are supposed to be leading them.”
“Then we’ll pick them up on our way over there.” I tugged Roan forward. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
In a few minutes we were downtown. A cool breeze slipped through the air, tangling my hair. The trees were beginning to bud, and spring was starting to take root.
The vendors were still out, and I noticed another large cluster around the same one I’d seen earlier.
“Who’s next? Who’s next?” the barker cal
led. “Who wants me to turn something as simple as a button to gold?”
“I’ll give it a go,” said a burly man with a big mountain-man beard. He wore a plaid shirt and didn’t look like the sort who would be too interested in a ghost-hunting town.
Of course, someone might look at me with my purple hair and think the same thing.
Wait. Who was I kidding? The purple hair meant that of course I loved all things strange. At least, that’s how I appeared on the surface.
The barker, a thin man wearing a threadbare houndstooth jacket and slacks, extended his thin hand. The man’s face was lined, the skin rough as if he’d had a hard life.
He smoothed the thinning strands at the top of his head and eyed the burly man as if he were a cash register. All the barker had to do was hit a button and the bearded man would spit out a twenty.
I scoffed. I’d seen this guy’s kind plenty of times. He was a swindler, plain and simple. This was sleight of hand. He would take an object and surely palm it behind his back. When the burly guy wasn’t looking, he’d add some gold leaf onto it.
Either that or the bearded guy was a plant, placed in the audience to give the swindler some credibility.
Good luck with that.
“What do you have on you that’s small?” the swindler asked, saliva practically dropping from his tongue. “A button? A piece of thread? A dollar bill?”
Take a dollar and turn it into gold? Right.
“Ugh, let me see.” The burly man felt around in his pockets, pretending to look for something.
Give me a break. This was such a joke. I wanted to yell at the people watching that they were being taken by a hack, but I let it go.
Of course when Roan moved to keep going, I stopped him. I might not have liked the swindler, but I wanted to see how this played out.
“I’ve got this.” The man pulled a paper clip from his pocket.
Perfect. Didn’t they make those in gold and sell them at Target? I was pretty sure that they did.
The swindler licked his lips. “Now I won’t take your money. Not until after I’ve changed the object, but this will only take a moment.”
My gaze scanned the man’s table. A sign was pinned to the front and read, THE GREAT GARY. The only thing that was great about this guy was his ability to steal folks’s hard-earned money.
Gary plucked the paper clip from the man’s hand. I watched carefully as he cupped his other hand on top and spoke to the audience.
“The magic takes a moment, just a moment. Everyone concentrate with me. Think hard about it becoming gold.” Gary lifted his hand and voila! There sat the gold paper clip.
The crowd oohed and ahhed.
I rolled my eyes. Sleight of hand. That’s all it was.
I shook my head and moved on, taking Roan with me. I mean, come on. Couldn’t the public see the lie they were looking at? Magicians didn’t have magic. All they had was sleight of hand along with smoke and mirrors.
“What?” Roan said, “You didn’t want to get a dollar bill turned to gold?”
I sniggered. “You’re joking, right?”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Right.”
I threaded my hand through his arm. “I hate to see decent folks being taken advantage of, losing their money to a charlatan.”
Roan shrugged. “It’s theirs to lose.”
“Blissful Breneaux, how nice to see you.”
I inwardly groaned. The voice of Sheriff Kency Blount was enough to make me want to dart across the street and never come back. Not that I had anything to be afraid of; it was simply that I wasn’t a fan of hers.
She wasn’t a fan of mine, either.
I forced the biggest smile I could. The tall redhead sauntered over, to-go coffee cup in her hand. She eyed me and then Roan. “Roan,” she said disdainfully.
“Sheriff Blount, enjoying the vendors? Making sure none of them are, you know, swindling people?” I asked.
Kency scowled. “For your information all the vendors have been vetted.”
Roan’s brows shot to peaks. “Really? Even the one claiming to change objects into real gold?”
Kency nodded. “Believe it or not but we tested the metal. It’s gold.”
“It was when you tested it,” I murmured.
“Do I sense sarcasm, Blissful?”
“Absolutely not. I am not a police officer. I have no idea what I’m talking about.”
Kency eyed me suspiciously. “Right. You’re not. Let’s keep it that way.” Her gaze dragged to Roan. “Hope y’all enjoy your day.”
I smiled widely. “You, too.”
As soon as we were past her, I sank onto Roan’s arm. “Good grief, what did I do to deserve that woman’s ire?”
Roan shrugged. “I think she’s jealous of your purple hair.”
“She could have her own. All she would need to do is convince a ghost to give it to her as a gift.”
That was true. I’d received my purple hue as a present from a spirit I had helped. Ghosts are allowed a certain number of gifts they can bestow onto humans. Once they used all of them up, the gifts were gone.
I’d always wanted purple hair, and that’s what I got.
I liked it and Roan didn’t seem to mind, so in my opinion it was a win-win.
Roan slid his hand into mine. “Come on. I want to find out about this family, the one with the possible possession. Are you game?”
My heart constricted. The past was in the past, right? It would only harm me if I let it, and I wasn’t about to let the past sweep up into my future and take control.
“Okay.” I sighed, feeling my shoulders sag into commas as we continued down the street toward Southern Ghost Wranglers.
Ruth was waiting inside for us, her eyes glittering with delight, her fingers practically reaching for me as I entered.
She wanted to hear me say that she had won and we were going to the possession. I was about to explain that when Alice spoke.
“Well? Have you decided to do it? Is Roan going to meet the boy? Ruth and I were just placing bets on whether or not y’all would go. I wagered that Roan would go and you wouldn’t, Blissful. But Ruth said you’d both do it.”
Ruth slapped a hand over her face. “For goodness’ sake, Alice. You don’t have to tell them everything.”
“I want to know if I’ve won the bet or not,” Alice whimpered. “That’s what we’re talking about—the bet. If I’ve won, then you have to let me drive the side-by-side around town one night.”
“Alice,” Ruth said sharply.
It was impossible not to laugh. I chuckled into my hand before directing my next statement to Alice. “Why do you want to drive Ruth’s side-by-side?”
The side-by-side was a two-seater all-terrain vehicle that Ruth sometimes used to drive into places you couldn’t access by car.
“Well,” Alice said slowly, as if she were chewing her cud, “there’s going to be a side-by-side race at the fair at the end of the week. I’ve always wanted to enter, to show the young men that even us old women can play hard.”
I cocked a brow. “A race?”
“Yes,” Ruth said, waving her hand. “You’ve seen all those vendors, haven’t you?”
“I have.”
“They’re here for a small ghost festival. It’s nothing big, just a celebration of one of Haunted Hollow’s most famous hauntings.”
I shot Roan a teasing wink. “Why is it I’m only just now hearing about this?”
“Well, Blissful, in case you haven’t noticed,” Alice informed me in a rather grandmotherly way, “you’ve been busy getting rid of ghosts. You don’t really have time to hear about all our little festivals when you’re trying to help people expel pesky spirits from their houses.”
Roan clicked his tongue. “She’s right. You can’t be a superhero with purple hair and know everything that’s going on in town.”
I batted him with my hand. “But I like to think I can.”
Ruth clapped her hands. “Now tha
t we’ve established that there’s a ghost festival in honor of Tam Nugget, maybe we can get on with other things.”
“Tam Nugget?” I repeated. “That’s the name of the ghost?”
“Yes,” Ruth confirmed. “Tam Nugget was a singer in the early 1900s. She died on the stage in town. It was rumored that she was poisoned. Now her ghost haunts the old theater. Every year, on the anniversary of her death, there’s a performance and a seance to try to bring her back.”
“And Tam never shows up,” Roan said. “She supposedly haunts the place, but she’s a picky one and won’t appear for the seance, though folks keep trying.”
“Sounds like she has a strong fan base,” I admitted.
“Oh, definitely,” Alice said.
“And what does the all-terrain vehicle race have to do with Tam Nugget?” I asked out of curiosity.
Alice placed her crochet needles in a basket filled with yarn. “Oh, absolutely nothing. It’s just something we locals do.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Well, it appears that Ruth has won the bet.” My gaze cut to Roan, who smiled at me tenderly, sending a jolt of happiness zipping all the way to my toes. “After discussing it with Roan, we’ve decided to look into the possession.”
Alice waddled over to the coatrack and grabbed her purse. The rest of us stared at her.
“What?” she said. “I’m ready to go. We need to get on over there if we’re going to see what’s going on with this demon. Should we bring some holy water?”
My gaze slid to Roan, who tapped his fingers against his hips. “Uh, I knew I’d forgotten something. I left it at the inn. Keep your fingers crossed that we won’t need it. Come on. Let’s get going.”
I grabbed my purse. “I’m right behind you.”
BLISSFUL
The house was a nondescript A-frame sitting smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood. We had arrived in the old section of Haunted Hollow where the homes grew big, the ceilings sat high and the heat came from radiators.
I already hated the look of it. The home was too quiet from the outside, the wind still. The air was almost electric, a distant hum filling the atmosphere. I wasn’t sure if anyone else felt the disturbance.
