Witching There's Another Way

by Constance Barker

  Except...

  The last time Thomas had come to town, he’d just started on his master’s degree, and Avery had done nothing more exciting than re-organize the nonfiction section in the Coven Grove library, as well as become the unofficial head librarian.

  This time, things were different. Avery was learning magic. The real stuff—arcane formulae, words of power, the angles of higher dimensions, areas of math that defied the laws of physics and incorporated a staggering hundred and forty four dimensions that each had a unique name and function...

  He was bursting with the need to talk about it with Thomas, who was an engineering student and would almost certainly grasp at least some of it.

  And yet, just a few words of that and even if Avery could prove it was all true—and he could; even without a wand he knew a few cantrips by heart—it would create an uncrossable distance between them to reveal any of it. It was torture, not being able to share this part of himself when all he wanted was to share everything with this man.

  “So, you helped with the Gloria Olson case,” Thomas prompted. They’d been talking about it a bit just before they arrived at the restaurant. “That must have been exciting. She pled insanity, right?”

  Avery nodded. “Yeah. And, she was. She... heard voices. So. I guess they talked her into killing her friend.”

  “That’s terrifying,” Thomas muttered. “To go from stable and normal to killer in the space of a few months.”

  Avery shrugged. “Well... I met her a few times. I wouldn’t go so far as to say she was stable to begin with. Something just tipped her over. It’s sad, really. For her and for Professor Turner.” His phone buzzed again, and then a fourth time.

  Thomas cleared his throat and raised a thick, dark eyebrow.

  When it buzzed again, Avery sighed. “I... just let me check this. I have to use the restroom anyway.”

  Thomas gave him a nod of permission or approval, and Avery scooted his chair away from the table with a barely suppressed sigh to make his way toward the bathroom.

  When he was in a stall with the door closed, he took his phone out and looked at the messages. When he saw them, his heart dropped. They were from Bailey. There was a little girl missing. Probably it was all over town by now, but he’d been wrapped up in Thomas since they’d met that morning. He sent her a message back.

  “Out with Thomas. Want to help. Should I bring him?”

  Just seconds later, Bailey responded. “Probably not. Magic stuff possibly. Meeting Ryan at library for details. Can go without you.”

  Of course they could. It would probably be fine, too, except... picking a date over a missing kid? What kind of person would do that? Avery groaned quietly and rubbed his face, and then sent back, “I’ll meet you there.”

  He stuffed the phone back in his pocket and stared at the wall of the stall in the direction where Thomas was. Thomas’ aunt was a witch. One of the mysterious elders of the coven, Rita Hope. Technically, she was a great aunt, Thomas’ mother’s aunt. As far as Avery knew, Thomas and Rita had been close since he was a child, when his mother passed. Surely he had some idea of what she was? Surely, if he told Thomas about this new part of his life, he could accept it.

  But then, maybe he wouldn’t.

  Maybe this was what Bailey had gone through. Why it had taken her time to come around and tell Avery and Piper about herself. He felt sorry for her, if it was anything like what he felt now.

  He left the stall, and went back out into the restaurant, which was only just beginning to get busy for the dinner rush. Plenty of couples, local and visiting, were seated at tables and engaged in conversation, smiling and laughing quietly together. Probably, they all had secrets between them. It was unlikely they were like the secrets between Avery and Thomas, but everyone had them, right? Did any two people know one another totally?

  He smiled apologetically as he rounded the table he and Thomas were seated at.

  Thomas took the cue and closed his menu. “Something came up,” he said.

  Avery bit his lip, wincing as he nodded. “Pretty important. There’s a... kid missing, so... they’ll be organizing a search.”

  “Oh, God,” Thomas said, eyes widening. He took his napkin out of his lap and put it on the table. “I should come with you. The more help—”

  “You just had a long drive,” Avery said quickly. “I work at the library, so, you know... I have a contact sheet. It’s mostly just making calls. But, later on when people start combing I can call you.”

  Thomas frowned, puzzled. “I don’t mind hanging around while you make calls. I could help, too, if you have a list.”

  This whole business was harder than it looked. Avery shook his head, “There’ll be plenty of helpers. Maybe you could go to the Sheriff’s station and find out what the search areas are going to be?”

  That seemed to do it. Thomas watched Avery for a long moment, but finally bobbed his head once. “Yeah. Of course.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want you there,” Avery said. “Just, you know... division of labor.”

  “I get it,” Thomas sighed. He smiled, though, and stood from the table. They’d only gotten as far as taking water, but he put a five dollar bill on the table for a tip anyway. Wordlessly, he followed Avery out of Sandbar.

  When they were on the sidewalk, however, he put a hand on Avery’s shoulder. “Listen,” he said softly.

  Avery pressed his lips together tightly and put his hands in his coat pockets.

  “You seem nervous,” Thomas said. “About me, I mean. Or... us. Is everything okay?”

  “It’s fine,” Avery assured him. “We can go out again after we do what we can with the search.”

  “Right,” Thomas said. “Before that, though. You seemed a little closed off. I just want to be sure you want to... you know, keep doing this.”

  “Of course I do, Thomas,” Avery said. He took a step forward, and laid a hand on Thomas’ chest through his shirt. “I missed you. Really. I always do.”

  “Not enough to come with me when I go, though; right?”

  Avery’s hand dropped, and he stepped back slowly to leave. “Let’s just... do what we need to do right now. We can talk about this later?”

  As patient as he ever was, Thomas smiled, and waved Avery off. “Of course. Later. Bigger problems right now, right? I’ll... call you when I know what’s up.”

  They didn’t move right away. Avery’s stomach was unsteady, but it seemed like the wrong moment to try and kiss. They hadn’t finished dancing around it. “I’m sorry,” he said instead.

  Thomas only smiled at him, and then put his hands in his pockets and turned to get his car.

  Avery watched him until he was out of sight, and then ran the fingers of both hands through his hair before he turned to find his own car. It was already a long day—now it was looking like it would be a long night, too.

  Chapter 4

  AIDEN AND BAILEY ARRIVED at the library to find Ryan sitting at a table with his laptop, photos and scribbled on notebook paper spread around him. He had his pen between his teeth, his reading glasses low on his nose, and was squinting at the screen of his computer as he typed.

  He didn’t notice Bailey or Avery until they were pulling out chairs to sit down.

  “Oh,” he said when he glanced up and saw them. “You came. Good, good. Have a seat.”

  Bailey and Aiden both remained seated as Ryan finished what he was doing and closed the laptop. He pushed pictures at them.

  “This is Isabelle Kendleston,” he told them, tapping the pictures of a little girl with long black hair and bright, happy green eyes. “I spoke with her mother. She said all the same things to the Sheriff that she told me, but... well, they didn’t take any of it seriously. And why should they?” He shrugged, and then sighed. It ended with a short coughing fit.

  Bailey frowned. “Feeling okay?”

  Ryan only nodded and went on. “She told me... is Avery coming as well?”

  “He is,” Bailey sai
d, “he was out with Thomas.”

  “Thomas Hope?” Ryan asked, smiling. “Well, that’s nice. I can wait until he gets here.”

  “We’ll catch him up, Mr. Robinson,” Aiden said. “By all means, continue.”

  Ryan shrugged, and waved at his notes. “Apparently, Isabelle had an imaginary friend recently.”

  Aiden and Bailey shared a look, and waited.

  “Of course,” Ryan said, waving a hand, “children do. Bailey did—”

  “Dad!” Bailey hissed, her cheeks warming.

  “—most children do at some point, it’s perfectly normal. Except that Isabelle already had one before.” His tone darkened, and he raised an eyebrow ominously.

  Bailey either hadn’t caught up, or there was part of the story missing. “She... changed imaginary friends, then?”

  “Oh,” Ryan said, surprised about something, “no, no. Her new imaginary friend got rid of the old one. Threw him out.” He looked over his notes, shifting papers, and then pointed. “Binkle. The old friend. The new one—and this is the odd part—refused to give its name.”

  “Is it possible that she was unable to come up with a name for her new friend?” Aiden asked patiently.

  Ryan looked at him as though he’d claimed the world was flat. “You don’t have children, I take it. No, it’s not likely. Imaginary friends, for children, represent more than just creative varieties of companionship. The act of naming them is... universal. Nonsense names, typically... I imagine you can tell a lot about a child by what they name their imaginary friends. Bailey’s was Lord Harkfluffle, Duke of Pogswall.”

  Bailey shifted a little in her chair. It had been years since she thought of Lord Karfluffle. Even now, she couldn’t even remember what he’d looked like. Part horse, part parakeet, and he had all manner of powers that involved mostly glitter and rainbows—however, he also played a very personal part in making the sea rise and fall, the way the water in the bathtub did.

  Aiden didn’t seem to notice. He was focused on Ryan. “I see,” he said slowly, “so... is that all, then?”

  “There are other details,” Ryan told him, “but I don’t know what might be important and what isn’t. However, Dala—Isabelle’s mother—didn’t think that the unnamed imaginary being was imaginary at all. She suspected that Isabelle was speaking to an actual person, somewhere, who was somehow tricking the girl into keeping his or her identity a secret.”

  “Does that seem implausible?” Aiden asked.

  “How did she describe her new friend?” Bailey asked before her father could speak.

  Ryan smiled, and raised a finger. “Precisely. She didn’t know. When Dala asked, thinking that maybe this was an actual person, Isabelle couldn’t describe her new friend.”

  Aiden drew some of the note paper to him and began skimming with a finger.

  “Now that I’m remembering”—Bailey cleared her throat—“um... Harkfluffle... I feel like I had a really clear image of him in my mind.”

  “Even at my age,” Ryan agreed, “I remember Bill-Bop like it was yesterday. Seven feet tall, red hair, fish fins this long, a dolphin tail, and he could breathe fire.”

  A smile crept into Bailey’s face. She tried to imagine her father as a little boy, running around with such a creature.

  Ryan was oblivious to her amusement, he tapped his chin, and then opened up the laptop to type a few more lines. “I should put that in here...”

  Bailey watched him type. He had become more animated since Gloria had been arrested and convicted, and Trevor Sullivan, her boyfriend—or at least, her lover—and boss had scrambled to keep the paper together. In the course of that effort he’d begged Ryan to return to his old post as a regular writer for the Coven Grove Daily.

  It was good for him. After everything, he needed a purpose in life. His blog was still active, but seeing his stories in print, informing the local community—that was what Ryan loved.

  “Well, that’s interesting,” Aiden said. He passed one of the sheets of notebook paper to Bailey.

  She scanned over it, and found the same detail that Aiden had. When she did, she looked up at him, frowning. “You think...?”

  “It seems thin, but look how she described it. It sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”

  She hummed a strange song, Dala had told Ryan, it was beautiful, very sad, but Isabelle never had a talent or interest in music before. The song never repeated, but it was always sort of the same.

  “Maybe,” Bailey said hesitantly, “they... heard it from the same place? Some TV show, maybe.”

  “The music?” Ryan asked.

  “What music?”

  Ryan looked up at the same time that Bailey and Aiden turned to see Avery walking toward them, his hands in his coat pockets. He didn’t look happy. Not that he should have, under the circumstances—but he looked more personally miserable. When Bailey frowned, though, he just shook his head slightly.

  “Are we looking at a pied piper kind of thing then? Someone luring children off with music?”

  Aiden shook his head, “We don’t know anything yet. But there was a boy earlier, one of the tourists, who was humming strange music as well.”

  “Contagious music?” Avery wondered as he took a seat and pulled some photos to himself. His eyebrows knitting. “Some kind of persistent psychic reverberation through the second ether, maybe, right?” He looked up at Aiden.

  Aiden shrugged, while Bailey and Ryan shared a confused look.

  “Wizard stuff,” Bailey told her father. “Mostly math.”

  He made a quiet “Ah” sound, and went back to his laptop.

  “How long has she been missing?” Avery asked.

  “Since this morning,” Ryan said without looking up from his laptop, “but likely she was taken—or, maybe ran off—last night.”

  “Is that a possibility?” Aiden asked.

  Ryan looked up, and glanced at Bailey before he went back to his laptop. “It happens from time to time.”

  “So,” Avery said, “we grab something that belongs to Isabelle, do a little search magic, go find her, bring her back?” He glanced at Bailey and Aiden expectantly.

  That seemed more or less straightforward, but Aiden didn’t seem convinced. Bailey nudged him. “We’ve done that kind of thing before.”

  “Yes,” Aiden said carefully. “We have. Perhaps we should consult with the coven first. As well, we should take part in the search. It may be as simple as a little girl lost in the woods.”

  Avery’s phone chimed, and he looked down at it before he raised a finger for quiet. He put it to his ear. “Thomas, hi. Yes, we’re... oh,” he looked up, panicked, and waved a hand at all the papers. “We’re at the big table behind the magazine stack. You can see it from the door. Good. See you soon.”

  When he hung up, he sucked in a sharp breath and Bailey waited for the shoe to drop.

  “So,” Avery said, “Thomas is coming this way. I kind of... sent him to the Sheriff’s station.”

  “Why did you come out here if you were busy with Thomas?” Bailey asked, incredulous. “We could have handled this.”

  “Being around him was getting to be stressful,” Avery muttered. He rubbed his temples. “Leaving didn’t help. Now it’s that much worse.”

  “You haven’t—” Bailey started, but the door to the library opened, and a deep, familiar voice drifted to them.

  “Knock knock... any amateur sleuths lurking in here?” Thomas asked.

  The door closed behind him, and Avery leaned out to wave him over. “Detective’s club over here,” he said. “Come join us. What did they say?”

  “At the Sheriff’s station?” Bailey asked.

  Thomas nodded as he approached. “Avery sent me there, said you all were calling for volunteers. But the Sheriff is still organizing so... we’re all supposed to go help out in two hours, when they’ve got a plan put together.” He looked over the table. “Are you done with the volunteer list.”

  “Just finished,” Aiden said. “It�
�s a small town.”

  “Alright,” Thomas said, though he didn’t seem convinced. “What else can I help with?”

  The gathered crew all shared quick looks. Ultimately, Bailey leveled her eyes on Avery intently, wishing she could put a thought into his head.

  Either she did, or he was developing some kind of psychic ability himself, because he looked away from her momentarily and then back up at Thomas. “We... should... go change clothes,” he said. “I’m dressed more for a date, you know, than... hiking. Why don’t you take me home, and I’ll pick some stuff up and then we can go back to Rita’s place and get you changed, too.”

  It sold, probably under the implied promise of more than just changing clothes, and Bailey bit her lip to keep from smiling at Avery. It was an excuse to get Thomas away from where magic was almost certainly going to take place; nonetheless, there was a glimmer of excitement in his eye. She found herself wishing Avery could find someone like...

  She swallowed the thought, but her eyes flickered involuntarily to Aiden.

  “We should get changed, too,” Bailey said to him.

  Aiden raised an eyebrow.

  “For the hike,” she said, and then, after a pause: “Uh... not... together or anything.”

  Ryan looked up at that, and Bailey’s cheeks flushed deeper than the last time by several degrees. She stood quickly, smoothing her shirt, which didn’t need it. “So I’m going to go, and you two should go, and... I’ll meet you,” she looked at Aiden, almost, “at the... place. Where we’re starting.”

  Aiden’s lips moved, pressed together, nearly curled and then finally smoothed. “Of course. I’m sure I have something appropriate for the occasion.”

  No one appeared to want to be the first to leave, so Bailey pushed her chair back up to the table. She reached for one of the photos of little Isabelle. “Can I take this?” She asked Ryan.

  “I have several,” he said.

  “Later, then?” Bailey asked, looking at the group.

  Everyone nodded, and when Bailey left, others followed.