by Tess Lake
I took in a long, slow breath, trying to calm myself. At least it seemed she didn’t know it was us, the Torrent witches plus Kira, who had been behind the theft.
“That’s quite some story,” I said, my voice cracking a little. I cleared my throat and looked out the window, trying to think of what to say.
“There’s something very strange going on in Harlot Bay,” Red whispered.
“Are you going to be staying after the festival is over?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level.
“Non-fiction isn’t my thing… but it is very intriguing,” Red said, appearing to be in her own world. We drove the rest of the way to town in silence, heading for Red’s first session of the day. I was afraid to speak, lest I give myself away. We arrived at the first session, unloaded the trunk and went inside, only to find Sheriff Hardy waiting for us. He motioned the both of us over.
“Good morning Sheriff,” I said, feeling like I wanted to drop the papers and bolt out of there.
Sheriff Hardy didn’t even look at me. “I need to speak Red in private,” he said. Red glanced at me and then nodded to Sheriff Hardy.
“Harlow, leave the materials here, I can handle them. You take the rest the day off,” she instructed.
I put the papers and books on the ground and then stumbled away in a bit of a daze. Was Sheriff Hardy about to arrest Red? I hadn’t even thought to get in contact with him. Should I maybe try to speak with him privately? Tell him the truth that it was us breaking in, and we did it for what we thought was a very good reason, to stop whatever this magical monster was that was in Harlot Bay.
I walked down the main street debating with myself over what I should do, heading vaguely in the direction of Traveler where I knew I could borrow Molly’s car to drive home, seeing as I now had the rest the day off. I wasn’t paying much attention, which is why I walked directly into Jack’s dad.
“Oh my Goddess I’m sorry,” I blurted out before I realized who it was. It was him and Jas, I guess out for a walk. Both of them were smiling at me, oblivious to the turmoil that was churning inside my mind.
“Good to see you Harlow! Not going to run off this time are you?” Jon said.
Jas whacked him on the arm and I gave both of them an embarrassed smile.
“I’m not planning on running away this time,” I said.
“We were hoping we could have another dinner with you before we left. What do you think?” Jas asked me.
In the distance over their shoulders I noticed Rufus and Dawn out on the street holding a newspaper. Even from here I could tell it was a copy of The Harlot Bay Times. Dawn was shaking it and talking to Rufus as though she was angry, and then they both looked in my direction. Dawn pointed and then they came barreling down the sidewalk towards me.
“Um… sure, that would be great,” I said. I had a sudden strong desire to run again but no matter what, not even if there was an angry bull bearing down on me, was I going to run away from Jack’s parents again and have them think that I was crazy.
“Are you working at Writerpalooza today?” Jon asked.
“Today I actually have the day off,” I said, trying to think of a way to carefully disengage myself from the situation before Rufus and Dawn could get to me. But they were moving too fast and I realized with a sinking stomach that whatever was going to happen was going to happen right in front of Jack’s parents.
Dawn came up brandishing the newspaper like a weapon. “We know you’re behind this!” she yelled at me. She held the newspaper up so I could read the headline. It said: ‘Mysterious Mysteries Fake Monster Suit!’ It was written by Carter and at a brief glance, I could see that he claimed to have evidence that they had a fake monster suit and that he’d seen someone wearing it.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” Rufus demanded.
I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to say but before any words could leave my mouth, both Jon and Jas stepped forward.
“You need to back off right now,” Jon growled. He looked the vision of Jack, strong and tall and not to be messed with. A moment later I realized this was nothing compared to Jas.
“She’s a journalist and you’re some two-bit con artists. She can report on you if she wants!” she said, breathing fire. She stomped on Rufus’s foot and he fell over with a squawk. It all happened so fast I didn’t know quite what to do. Suddenly, she was nose to nose with Dawn.
“She’s family. Do you want to start something because I’m feeling a little hot and being hot makes me crazy,” Jas said in an undertone.
Dawn went from belligerent anger to clear panic in a second flat. She dropped the newspaper, hauled Rufus up from the ground and then pulled him away down the street, him hobbling to keep up with her. Jas turned towards me, her eyes still slightly wild.
“Sorry about that, we’re not going to let anyone harass our family members,” she said.
“Come on Jas, they’re girlfriend and boyfriend, let’s not make it that serious,” Jon said, trying to make a joke to calm everyone down.
Jas turned to him, “You come on! Have you seen the way Jack looks at her? Oh, and the way Jonas looks at Peta? We’re going to have two new daughters-in-law any day now, I guarantee it,” she said.
“Um… what?” I croaked.
“We have to get going, time for breakfast, gotta go. Hopefully we’ll see you soon,” Jon said, pulling Jas away with him.
“It’s true love, Harlow, I’ve seen it before!” Jas called out as she was hauled away.
Sheriff Hardy questioning Red had certainly knocked me off balance, but this had made me feel the entire planet had been knocked off its axis. I renewed my walk down the street, this time speeding up, rushing to get to Traveler so I could borrow Molly’s car and get home where I could stay in the peace and quiet and hope nothing else happened to me today.
Part of the family? It was simultaneously a terrifying and lovely idea.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I stood up from my hard wooden chair, feeling my back protesting, and glared at the wall of crazy.
It sat there looking crazy and… complicated.
After I’d come home on my unexpected day off I’d soon found myself pacing between the lounge and kitchen wondering what was going to happen to Red. Would she be arrested? What if someone had seen her or the other writers entering or leaving the museum? There were hundreds of exhibits at the Harlot Bay Museum so perhaps it was possible the theft of the compass would slip by, but perhaps it hadn’t. Maybe even right now the police were working on the case.
It hadn’t taken long before I realized I was going to drive myself crazy so I left our end of the mansion and went to my lair in one of the cottages up in the forest. I hadn’t been in there in some weeks but unlike my office in town there wasn’t a layer of dust covering everything. There was just the wall of crazy covered in notes and pieces of paper and old articles, the table and chair, and Juliet Stern’s journal.
I spent the rest of the morning and a good part of the afternoon going through the journal page by page, looking for any mention of Juliet’s husband or Marguerite or her husband. But the journal was the same as it ever was. The mundane recordings of running The Merchant Arms, pages of eggs and flour and ingredients for beer being delivered. The rare times that Juliet wrote about something occurring in the town it was minor or on the level of gossip. But I was very aware that this was a magical journal. In the past I’d experienced a memory traveling along with Marguerite Torrent with Juliet Stern, chasing the Shadow Witch and seeing the tragedy that had resulted from that: Juliet’s daughter dying and Marguerite almost losing her daughter, Rosetta.
Thanks to Ollie we now knew that Rosetta had had a daughter herself, our grandmother’s grandmother and the line had carried on down to us. There were no traces however, of what had happened to Juliet and Marguerite’s husbands.
I’d gone through the journal front to back, reading each page and then flipping to random pages, hoping that I would come upon something that mig
ht explain the man or the monster that was currently stalking Torrents and Sterns in Harlot Bay. Aunt Cass had said that the magic turning gritty, the feeling of it, was the same as what she’d experienced out on Truer Island when a monster had come out of nowhere and attacked her. That battle had ended in an enormous explosion that created a hole in the ground half a mile across. Was that what was required here? Would we have to hunt down the monster and then detonate a large portion of the countryside? What if the monster tried to attack one of us while we were in town? That outcome seemed bad enough but what was worse was the idea that one of us, or the Sterns, could be attacked. Or if the monster couldn’t get at one of us, perhaps it would start killing random tourists.
Despite my urgent desire to find some clue, some piece of information that might lead us to an answer, Juliet’s journal refused to help me. It was now late afternoon and I was going between the wall and the journal, perhaps pointlessly, not knowing what else I could do. It was clear at least that there was some connection to me in all of this. The map had lit up in my hands leading us to the compass, but now the compass wouldn’t work.
I paced the small cottage, two or three steps in one direction before turning around and heading back again. My mind began to drift onto Jack. Maybe he was right and we should get out of town. Perhaps permanently. I was a Slip witch and so staying in Harlot Bay was good for me because the magical confluence helped calm me. But given how often I’d slipped and how many strange things went on in our town, I was starting to think that living somewhere far less magical might be the better outcome. Of course the last time that had happened I had awoken in the night to the sound of fire alarms, and the apartment I was staying in had burnt to the ground.
I looked out the window, seeing the sun was setting. Soon it would be twilight. Molly and Luce had already messaged me to say that I didn’t need to return to pick them up. They would catch a ride home with Aunt Freya, so at least I was off the hook for that. As I looked out the window towards the setting sun I saw shadows hugging the trees in the forest. Was there a man standing in them right now watching me? One perhaps cursed to murder or perhaps willing to do so? I turned away from the window with a shiver.
I picked up Juliet’s journal again and flicked to a random page. More supplies for The Merchant Arms, eggs and flour. As I held the journal, frost began to climb up over the pages, spreading out from my hands. I’d been too long since I’d touched the magical stone that Aunt Cass had given me.
“Argh!” I said and slammed the journal down on the table. I grabbed the stone and began rubbing it between my fingers, starting up my pacing again.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened to your husbands? The man we saw, he thought I was Marguerite so which one is he? Benjamin or Johannes?” I said. I realized I was shouting at the journal, sounding like a crazy person. I glared at the wall again, looking at the various notes I’d put up. It was a convoluted mess and I had the sudden desire to rip it all down and shred it into pieces. I was on the verge of summoning a fireball to do just that when another soft, quieter part of my mind spoke up: there is a spell on you.
I shook my head. Aunt Cass was right. There was something pushing on us, that persistent force and it was getting weaker. I had never been able to sit up here and look at the wall of crazy for this long before. I’d always get distracted, end up tapping away on my phone, or writing my novel instead. Now I’d been up here for hours, concentrating intensely.
I looked back at the journal and then gave a double blink. I’d slammed it shut when I dropped it on the table but now it was sitting open to a page. The writing on the page had a golden shimmer to it, as though it was living ink. I grabbed the journal and read the single entry on the page.
I was forced to lock the men away. The curse is far too strong, I cannot break it alone. When Torrent returns, we may attempt it, but I fear we will fail. I have hidden them in the deep dark place. Their names will find them.
The moment I read the entry the journal snapped shut, as though it had a life of its own. I immediately grabbed it and flicked through the pages but the journal had reverted to its usual secretive self. I dropped it back onto the table.
Their names will find them.
I knew their names. Johannes Tilson had married Marguerite Torrent and had a daughter Rosetta. Benjamin Mainer had married Juliet Stern. The names came to me easily and I knew what I needed. I rushed out of the cottage, heading back to our end of the mansion where my phone was. I came bursting in through the door, intent on calling Aunt Cass to tell her to come home so I could have the compass only to find her sitting on our sofa, holding it in her hand. I stopped short when I saw her.
“The strangest thing, the compass started glowing and then spinning. I could feel something was happening over here… so what have you found?” Aunt Cass said.
“Juliet’s journal has given me a clue,” I said. I took the compass from her and held it in my hand.
“Benjamin Mainer,” I whispered to it. The needle didn’t move.
“Johannes Tilson,” I said.
The surge of magic took us both by surprise. The needle spun and then finally slowed, now pointing in a new direction–directly towards Truer Island.
“My trap is nearly ready. We’ll take the family and go tomorrow,” Aunt Cass said.
I passed her the compass. “Keep it safe,” I said.
I glanced out the window where the lengthening shadows were creeping up to the house. An odd sort of calmness had come over me. The monster or man had been stalking Stern and Torrent but now we would be stalking it.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The moms’ argument had been at a low simmer all morning and now was threatening to boil over completely.
“It puts the Sheriff, my husband, in a very bad position,” Aunt Ro said in clipped tones.
We continued to unload our gear from the trunk of the car. None of us wanted to get dragged into this argument. Aunt Cass pulled the trap out of the trunk and gave it to Molly to carry. It was essentially a hoop made of thorns. Molly was already wearing the gardening gloves Aunt Cass had given her so she could carry it safely.
“We can’t let innocent people be arrested for things they didn’t do,” Mom repeated.
“Which way Harlow?” Aunt Cass said, ignoring the argument.
I checked the compass. It was pointing in a direction through the thick forest.
“We go that way,” I said. Aunt Cass nodded at me to lead and so I did, my cousins, Kira and Aunt Cass following behind with the moms bringing up the rear.
“They’re not exactly innocent are they? They were found with carving tools and spray paint and also a monster suit. How do we know they didn’t attack those two men?” Aunt Ro said.
The publication of Carter’s article had sent the national media in town into overdrive and had forced Sheriff Hardy’s hand. Carter had captured footage of Dawn and Rufus spray painting one of the strange symbols around town. They were taken in for questioning, their rental searched, and of course the suit, carving equipment and spray paint all found. The law now had everything they needed to nail Rufus and Dawn to the wall. The argument that had been simmering away all morning was whether we, as witches who knew that something supernatural was happening, and as also being behind some of the spray painted symbols in town ourselves, had a responsibility to tell Sheriff Hardy that Rufus and Dawn were innocent.
Sheriff Hardy was aware that something was going on but in typical witchy fashion Aunt Ro hadn’t told him everything. It appeared now that she, like Molly, was uncomfortable with the idea of revealing the true depths of our witchy nature to her newly married husband.
“If we give him proof that it wasn’t Rufus and Dawn, then surely Sheriff Hardy can use his influence to set them free,” Mom said.
“No, you can’t do that! Molly was right. Where are our husbands? Where are their fathers? Gone and for all of the same reason: too much witchiness. If we manage to catch this monster or man or whatever it
is today, I’ll let him know, but I’m not going to put any pressure on him to change the outcome for the Mysterious Mysteries,” Aunt Ro said, her voice rising to a yell.
“There are bigger things happening in Harlot Bay than some people being arrested,” Aunt Cass snapped. That kept the moms quiet for a few minutes as we marched through the forest, which although it was in deep shadow was still quite warm.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea that we tell Sheriff Hardy that we were spray painting around town,” Molly said.
“That we were blackmailed into spray painting around town,” Luce said in a dark tone.
“I appreciate the general position that the innocent should not be arrested, but he is my husband, not a pawn to be pushed about. We didn’t cause Rufus and Dawn’s problems,” Aunt Ro said.
We continued marching in silence, Kira tapping away at her phone until the signal dropped out and then shoving it into a pocket. When we’d gone out to Truer Island that morning we hoped we would be able to drive to wherever the compass was taking us, but it soon became evident that there was no road where we wanted to go. We’d driven around, even going past the old Governor’s mansion, seeing the compass turn as we went. We finally stopped at a dead-end road and headed off cross country. The plan was simple. Use Aunt Cass’s trap to capture the monster or man and then see if we could question it to discover why it had attacked two people with the last name of Stern, and why it had been watching us.
Although the plan appeared simple it didn’t mean there wasn’t a lot of anxiety amongst us witches. On top of all that, the moms were still tired from working late at the bakery, trying to look after the bed-and-breakfast, and maintaining the wards. They’d finally let those spells go this morning which had helped them recover a small amount of energy, but frankly the three of them were exhausted. Aunt Cass wasn’t much better. She’d been up all night finishing the trap and kept yawning into the back of her hand. She was carrying her crowbar, the one with her name inscribed on it, and had a determined expression on her face.
