Poison & Pie

by Beth Byers

  His voice faded out as Scarlett’s senses focused in on the mess to the exclusion of everything else. Her gaze was fixed on the shattered plates that had sprayed across the aisle in shards of glass and packaging. The cart was a mountain of food covered in glitters of destruction.

  Scarlett stared. Not for the first time, parenting had left her gape-mouthed and clueless. She didn’t worry that someone would steal her daughters—who would after this fiasco? This was worse than when her neighbor had brought the girls home after running through the cul-de-sac naked. This was worse than when Scarlett had found them covered in whipped cream and powdered sugar ‘making breakfast.’ It was worse than when Luna had painted her crib in poop. It was…the worst.

  “Mommy,” Luna whimpered, and the sound of her daughter snapped Scarlett back. Luna slid her little hand into Scarlett’s, “I’m sorry.”

  Scarlett didn’t reply, but she squeezed her baby’s chubby little fingers. Glancing down, she made sure that Ella was there too and then Scarlett let out a string of curses that would have gotten her mouth washed out with soap if her mother had heard her, despite Scarlett having moved out more than 10 years before.

  “Oh my lands,” said the sour old woman.

  “Let it out,” said the middle-aged woman who was still laughing. “It’ll do you good.”

  “What happened?” A man cried with enough authority to startle Scarlett and get her to slowly turn and face him.

  His headset and red vest indicated he was clearly the manager. She didn’t know what to say. She stood, trying and failing to come up with an explanation.

  “I—I—,” Luna’s tremulous voice filled the silence and crocodile tears started running down her freckle bedecked cheeks as she said, “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”

  Luna’s apology was followed by a wail that had her mother scooping her up.

  The manager took a long, deep breath, his gaze fixed on Luna’s crying face.

  “I’m so sorry,” Scarlett whispered, echoing her daughter. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Just go,” the manager ordered. His fists were clenched on his hips, looking beyond Scarlett, his gaze fixed on the disaster. But there was an edge of sympathy on his face when he added, “Maybe don’t come back.”

  “Those are some fine spirited daughters you have there,” the African American man said. His empathetic gaze eased Scarlett a little out of her stupor. “They’ll be outstanding adults.”

  Scarlett nodded once. If she survived their childhood, she was very much looking forward to their adulthood. Scarlett glanced around, seeing that everyone’s gazes were still fixed on her face. She told herself to channel her inner southern belle. She told herself to stick her nose up in the air, straighten her back and shoulders, and own her walk of shame. She didn’t though. She scurried for her car, daughters in tow, and escaped.

  Her daughters were silent when she started the car. They stayed quiet when she laid her head down on the steering wheel and breathed, trying and failing for fluffy-cloud thoughts or sunny-day thoughts, or quiet-stream thoughts. Ella and Luna didn’t make a peep when Scarlett wiped a tear off of her face, sniffed, and stared at them through the rearview mirror.

  “That was exciting,” she croaked. She had tried and failed at cheery, but her comment broke the shell around the girls.

  “I’m sorry, Mommy,” Ella said.

  Scarlett shook her head and then said, “How about pizza?”

  It was the right thing to get them chattering again, but in the end, Scarlett still needed milk and bread, and...

  Wine.

  And to talk to her sister.

  Scarlett turned on the soundtrack to Moana even though the 'Shiny' song made her want to gouge out her eardrums. She drove through the only pizza place with a drive-thru even though she hated the pizza there. They each got a slushy and she rolled the windows down while the girls ate.

  With the east wind tangling her hair, caressing her skin, whispering to her she was feeling the impending change in the air. It was time. It had been for a long time.

  * * * *

  “Shut up,” Scarlett’s sister, Harper, squealed through tears of laughter. Scarlett didn’t need to see her sister’s face to know that Harper was flushed in her laughter, that she was sitting barefoot and cross-legged on the floor with a bag of hot Cheetos, a bottle of sweet wine, and probably leftovers from the dinner she had likely missed because she had been working late.

  Scarlett’s own dinner of cold pizza had been shoved aside for sherry and a bar of dark chocolate. She was justifying her food choices with a bowl of strawberries. Scarlett was sure her mother would be as disapproving of Scarlett’s dinner as Harper’s.

  Scarlett slid down the wall, crossing her legs, and toeing off her shoes. She listened to Harper laugh some more over the episode at the grocery store, but Harper ended it with a statement that Scarlett wasn’t quite ready for.

  “I found the right place,” Harper said, casually referring to finding a place for Scarlett to live in Mystic Cove. Harper had been looking for a place for Scarlett since the day she'd moved away more than a decade ago. Her sister's persistent rebellion against Scarlett's move had always made the idea of the move back all the easier. She didn't want to admit it was past time to come home, but it was. She was going to leave her husband, pack up their things, and move home. The east wind had been whispering to Scarlett for a long time, and she knew better than to ignore such a capricious friend for long.

  The truth was, Scarlett was a druid. She'd had her path foretold. She'd known that she'd fall in love. She'd known that she'd see the world. She'd known that she would eventually move home. The druids were some of the least powerful of the supernatural races individually. But their sense of knowing had led them aright for generations. The knowing was a discernment, an understanding—less than prediction but more than instinct. If a druid followed her knowing, it wouldn’t necessarily lead her through the easiest paths, but it led her to the most wanted pockets of joy. The ability to know was a gift that the wisest of the other races envied.

  “This is it. Definitely.” Harper said as Scarlett mused on the east wind and what her extra senses had been telling her. “It's the bakery. Sweeter Things. Henna is going to sell the bakery and the building. There are apartments over it."

  Scarlett sipped her sherry to the sound of her sister holding back her demand that Scarlett admit that this was it. For saying nothing, Harper was being really loud.

  “I don’t know if I’m ready,” Scarlett admitted, taking another sip to procrastinate thinking, letting the sweetness of it linger in her mouth.

  “What do you feel when you meditate in your garden?” Harper’s voice held a tinge of irritation to it, and Scarlett was sure it was because they both knew the outcome already. It was just a matter of time. It always had been. And Harper knew well that the garden, like the east wind, would help Scarlett access her abilities. The garden would push Scarlett down her path. It was why she hadn't wanted to meditate.

  Scarlett closed her eyes. She hadn’t wanted the answer. She knew what she was going to get if she dared to meditate—and it was a transformation she didn’t think she was ready for. But she felt the impending ax of change all the same.

  “It's time,” Harper said right before they hung up.

  Scarlett looked down the hall to her empty bedroom and then slid into her daughters’ room. Ella had climbed into bed with Luna and their heads were nestled into the same pillow. Scarlett didn’t need the light of the hall to see their peaches-and-cream faces, the sprinkling of freckles across their cheeks, their pink lips. She didn’t need their eyes to open to perfectly envision their mossy green eyes. They were mirrors of each other and, for that matter, her.

  They were everything. She reminded herself of it as the door to her house opened and the wind of change swirled through the entryway, down the hall, and around her ankles.

  And she knew.

  "It's time. We're coming."

  Chapter 2<
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  “Mommy!”

  Scarlett dropped the pan of cupcakes she’d pulled from the massive oven and darted to the back door. She knew her daughters well, and she knew a cry of utter terror when she’d heard one—the way the voice quavered at the end, the way it was emotion filled instead of whiney. The bakery door was propped open, but Scarlett slammed into the doorjamb, gasped, and stumbled past the exit and onto the green space behind the old brick building.

  “Mommy!” Luna’s second cry was terrified but the barking of their dog, Max, was worse. Luna could be mistaken, but Max—he never made a mistake about who was dangerous and who wasn’t. And, right then, he sounded like he was about to maul someone.

  “Luna!” Scarlett shrieked, pushing herself off the ground and near flying across the ground to her daughter. She dropped to her knees, turned her baby, and demanded, “Are you ok? What’s wrong? What!”

  Luna was crying, sobbing into Scarlett’s neck, but Max’s growls hadn’t stopped and Scarlett rose with Luna wrapped around her body. Scarlett pressed her fingers into Luna’s tangled ponytail and searched around, but there was nothing wrong—the grass was green and vibrant, the brilliant flowers were untrampled, the dirt smelled as rich as ever. It was too early for much foot traffic between the buildings, so it was doubtful that a passer-by scared Luna and Max.

  Mystic Cove was barely waking up and the bakery wouldn’t be open for at least another half hour. Sweeter Things was casual about the start time with even their open sign stating they opened between 7:00 am-ish and 8:00 am-ish. Their regulars knew to knock since the baker arrived at 4:00 am.

  Scarlett rose, holding her daughter close with Luna’s little legs wrapped around her mother’s waist and tears wetting her neck. The hair on the back of Scarlett’s neck was high and fierce. Something was wrong. Their dog Max was a massive leonburger, and he continued to pace and growl at the side of the fence.

  Scarlett looked both ways. Eyes frantically darting to each landmark, trying to find the cause. The back of the bakery was bound in by a little twig and vine fence more to protect the plants from tourists than to provide any sort of boundary. The nearest building was only perhaps the width of a car and a half from the little fence. The alley between the bakery and the next building was often used as a shortcut by the locals—but generally, it was empty. Something told Scarlett it wasn’t empty now, yet she saw nothing when she looked over the low fence. Maybe it was the way the hair was at attention on the back of her neck, maybe it was the sick feeling in her stomach, but probably it was the way Max was still pawing at the little boundary. Or perhaps the way the gentle giant’s growls had turned vicious.

  Scarlett stepped closer to the fence, snapping her fingers for the dog when she saw it. She stopped, bit her lips, and took another step closer, but as she did, she pressed her daughter’s face more tightly into her neck.

  It took a moment to identify the spray of blonde hair and blood as a person. It was…not right. Scarlett closed her eyes, held her baby’s face pressed into her neck, and called, “Max, heel.”

  The growls didn’t stop, but he paced at her feet as she ran towards the back door of the bakery and away from what she’d seen and from what she hoped her baby hadn’t seen.

  “Henna,” Scarlett called as she flew at the bakery. The curvy little woman was standing at the doorway, certainly drawn by the clatter of Scarlett’s exit. “Call the police.”

  “What?” Henna squawked, her watery blue eyes dismayed and her head already shaking. “It’s Wally’s breakfast time. He won’t be good about it. We better wait.”

  “Henna,” Scarlett hissed. “Call. Wally. Now.”

  Henna took a step back, but her gaze sharpened, looking past Scarlett to the undisturbed backyard and then somehow seemed to understand that something big was wrong. “Well, I’ll call on over to Mabel’s. It’s meatloaf omelet day.”

  Scarlett’s eye twitched, but she nodded and moved into the back of the bakery. It was things like everyone knowing where the sheriff was that made Scarlett crazy. The town had about 10,000 people, but it still felt constantly incestuous. Even if you didn’t know every single person, you knew all the main families, all the different races. You knew where the sheriff would be and all his little tics. Those were the things that drove her to leave Mystic Cove more than a decade ago.

  Everyone knew everything. And still, she hadn’t called her mother. By the stars! They’d only arrived last night. Scarlett hadn’t expected to help in the bakery so quickly, but Henna had seemed so tired, and of course—Scarlett hadn’t felt up to calling her mother yet. Or Gram. Or her Aunt Briët. Or her cousins. Damn.

  Only her mother really mattered though.

  Having not called was far more important than before. If Scarlett’s eyes had not deceived her that had been Lacey Monroe. And there was no question that the murder of Lacey Monroe would spread so fast that Scarlett wouldn’t be able to get ahead of it. Ignore that for now, Scarlett told herself, ignore what had happened and call your mother. Before everyone in town calls her to tell her you’re back and you found a body. Get ahead of the hurt.

  Scarlett slid her phone out of her pocket, pressed her mother’s name and set her daughter on the counter.

  “Luna?” Those sweet green eyes blinked lazily up at Scarlett. Oh no. There was a reason that her feisty Luna had been so quiet. Something was wrong. “Luna?”

  “Yes, Mommy?” Her voice the same piping bright voice that woke Scarlett every morning with a, Mommy scooch over for snuggles. It was a tone Luna hadn’t used since their dad, Grant, left.

  “Scarlett?”

  “Mom…” Scarlett looked up, out the window of the bakery and onto the street of her hometown. “I’m home. I’m at Sweeter Things. We moved back. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Lacey Monroe is dead, and everyone is about to call you to tell you I found the body.”

  Scarlett dropped her phone, lifted her daughter’s chin, and tilted her face to the left and the right, letting the light hit the white of the eyes and spread onto the pupil.

  “Damn. Damn. Damn.”

  Henna bustled in as Scarlett tilted Luna’s protesting face again. Henna said, “Now, now, I’ve called the sheriff. What is going on?”

  Scarlett looked over her shoulder at Henna and then back down at her daughter.

  “Luna, where are we?”

  “At home, silly head,” Luna said, then her gaze widened as she looked around. She took in the big metal racks for cooling trays from the ovens, the smell of bread in the air, the spray of cupcakes across the floor and her eyes widened further, tearing up—a typical, panicked reaction to a memory hex. Scarlett took a breath, bit her lip, rage rising as Luna asked, “Mommy?”

  “It’s ok, baby. It’s ok.” She pressed her forehead into her daughter’s, darting glances to the side for her oldest, and then told Henna, “There’s a B-O-D-Y outside. I think…I think…it’s Lacey. I think… Luna must have seen it. And, by the stars, I think she’s been memory hexed.”

  Henna pressed her hand to her chest and sat down. “Lacey?”

  Scarlett nodded.

  “Lacey Monroe?”

  Scarlett nodded.

  She took a deep breath, pressing her baby closer, rubbing her hand down Luna’s little spine. She was only four. Far too little to have seen whatever she saw. Far too little to…damn. Far too little to be at risk and she must be. Because someone had hexed Scarlett’s daughter. The amount of fury that flooded her cut through the numbness of the last few weeks, it cut through the anxiety of returning to Mystic Cove as a failure. It cut through everything and left only the she-wolf, mama bear, dangerous version of Scarlett. Someone was going to be regretting their life choices as soon as Scarlett dug her claws into them.

  “Lacey Monroe? The mayor? Lacey? Can it be?”

  “Yes,” snapped Scarlett. And then she shouted, “Ella!”

  “What?” The amount of disdain a seven-year-old could put into the tone in her voice was a lesson that Ella was still t
eaching Scarlett, but she didn't think the lesson was anywhere close to finished.

  “Sit,” Scarlett ordered her daughter. “Hold Max’s collar and don’t let go.”

  “Why?” Ella asked, curling her lip. She flicked her long bark-brown hair back and shrugged a single shoulder.

  “You listen to me,” Scarlett said, leaning down to look her daughter in the matching green eyes of Luna—and for that matter—herself. “I know you’re angry. That’s fine. Be angry. But right now, BIG things are happening, so you’re going to shove all that anger into a box, do as I say, and lash out at me later.”

  Ella rolled her eyes, but she didn’t pull her usual move of crossing her arms over her chest. Instead, she dropped her hand down to Max’s collar, wrapped her fingers around the leather, and took a firm hold.

  “Thank you,” Scarlett said.

  “He can get away from me if he wants.” Ah, the disdain was back. Perfect. Exactly what Scarlett needed.

  “Your job,” Scarlett told Ella, dropping a kiss into her hair, “Is to protect him from everyone who is coming.”

  Ella paused. She wasn’t stupid, so she was realizing that something was wrong, and all of them adored their Max. He was a shaggy teddy bear of tongue-lolling love. She took a better glance at Luna in Scarlett’s arms and the way Henna was holding her chest and asked in a shaky voice, “Is everything all right? Is it Daddy?”

  Scarlett took in a long slow breath, wanted desperately to lie, and instead said, “No, baby. No. Everything is not ok. But your Daddy is fine.”

  The door to the bakery jangled and the lone police officer in Mystic Cove shambled through the door, belly bursting through the buttons of his uniform shirt, circles of sweat under his arms, and with a wiry red and gray beard on a face that proclaimed complete and utter irritation.

  * * * * *

  “Now,” Wally said, scowling around the bakery. “Now, what’s going on here…why…is that you Scarlett Oaken?”

  Scarlett’s eye twitched as she answered, “Yes, sir. There’s…” Scarlett glanced over at Ella and down at Luna. Every mother’s part of her told her not to leave them alone, and yet…she knew she’d not get away with that—not with a dead body.