by Lysa Daley
Not wanting to disturb him, I tiptoed in just in case he was taking a nap.
I’d brought him a little gift—a jar of strawberry jam. It was sort of an inside joke. I’d promised him one before his accident.
The day before the accident, Sam had been following me as I came out of a shop called Mackelmore’s Clocks and Timepieces that was actually a front for a wizard selling supernatural weapons and supplies. Instead of letting Sam see the trunkful of vampire fighting gear that I’d picked up for Stryker, I quickly cast a spell cloaking the weapons in the trunk into boxes of strawberries.
In order to explain the trunk full of fresh fruit in January to Sam, I lied and said I was making jam. To make it sound more believable I’d promised to give him a jar of it when I was done.
I wasn’t going to lie and tell him that I’d actually made it, instead my plan was to be sort of vague and explain that my batch didn’t turn out, so I replaced it with a jar from my favorite cafe.
I stopped in the entryway behind the drawn curtain and listened to what sounded like Jeopardy was playing on the TV.
“What is Death Valley?”
“I’ll take Frankie Avalon’s greatest hits for $500.”
I reached down and pulled the small gift bag out of my messenger bag. Just as I yanked the curtain back, a woman’s voice said, “Do you want me to change the channel, sugar?”
I instantly panicked. This had been a dumb idea. I never should have come back. I’d known all along that I really didn’t know anything about Sam. I didn’t know the first thing about his personal life. He obviously had a girlfriend.
But it was too late to leave unnoticed. I was already halfway through the curtain.
“Oh hi,” said the girl.
My cheeks flushed. “Hello.”
A beautiful girl with long golden brown hair dyed bright blue at the ends stood gawking at me. Her hair color seemed like a strange combination, but it actually looked really cute. It showed off her big green eyes. She was wearing a flowy peasant blouse and tight jeans. Her four-inch booties sat on the floor at the end of the bed.
“Come on in,” she said.
Sam, who was awake, turned to see me looking like an idiot in the doorway.
“Hi Lacey,” he said weakly. “You’re back so soon.”
I felt like an idiot. A complete and total idiot. I wanted to transform into a mouse and scurry away.
“Do you work with Sam?” she asked, clearly puzzled by my arrival.
“Oh um…”
After an awkward pause, Sam introduced us. “Lacey, this is Jules. Jules, this is Lacey.”
She came around the bed, extending her right hand to shake. “Nice to meet you. I’m Sam’s fiancé.”
Fiancé. He had a fiancé? And the vibe I was getting indicated that she clearly thought I was here to make a move on Sam.
“Ex-fiance,” he corrected her, then turned back to me.
She laughed and held up her left hand, on which she wore a sparkling diamond engagement right. “Oh stop that, honey. Everything has changed since his little accident, and we’re working things out.”
“Okay,” I said, glancing at Sam’s unreadable face.
The girl eyed the ridiculous gift bag dangling from my hand. “Did you bring us something?”
Now I had no choice. I had to hand it over to her. “Yeah, uh, it’s kind of silly.”
I felt super awkward as she opened the bag.
“How sweet,” she cooed.
Wait a minute. I had every right to be here. It wasn’t weird that I was coming to see a friend. I needed to shake off this insecure feeling of being an intruder.
As she focused on the gift, I tried to read her energy. I sensed nothing magical. Like Sam, she was a non-mag. A para-nothing, as Stryker would say.
“Oh my now, isn’t that original.” Jules pulled out the jar but seemed confused. “Strawberry jam.”
Sam’s eyes lit up. He instantly understood why I’d brought him this gift. “So you kept your promise after all.”
“I didn’t know you liked strawberry jam, Sam?” Jules asked.
“I thought you were joking,” he said, and I felt so relieved that he remembered this. “You really made the jam?”
“What’s this now?” The girl squinted, looking back and forth between us.
“Lacey promised to bring me this homemade jam,” he explained without explaining.
“Oh how nice.” She smiled but her eyes looked flat.
“Well, if I’m being 100% honest,” I began, “that jam is from my favorite cafe/coffee shop near campus. This one has a few healing herbs in it too.”
“Oh please.” He rolled his eyes. “I’ve got so much healing stuff going in and out of me that I’ll be the healthiest person alive by the time I get out of here.”
“That’s the idea.” Jules grinned, wedging her way back into the conversation. “How do you guys know each other?”
Sam and I exchanged looks. But I bit my tongue and stayed quiet. It wasn’t just that I wanted to hear what he was going to say about how we knew each other; I also wanted to know what he remembered from his injury. After all, even before the vampire attack at the blood bar, Sam had been suspicious that something unusual was going on at the Society of Shadows headquarters. How much had he confided to Jules? Did she know that he suspected something out of the realm of the human world was happening at the Ironwood Building?
“We met while I was working on a case,” he said vaguely.
“Oh, do you work for the police department too?” she asked.
“No, I’m a grad student at UCLA. But I have a part-time job downtown. That’s where I met Sam. He actually saved me.”
“He did?” She smiled but crossed her arms in front of her. You didn’t have be a witch to know that she felt threatened by the idea that Sam had saved some girl and now the girl had shown up at his hospital room. “What happened?”
“You tell her,” I said to Sam.
“Oh, it was nothing,” he began, but then hesitated. “In fact, the details are still a little sketchy.”
She intervened. “The doctors said that your memory might be a little delayed for a while.”
“I know. I remember,” he said defensively, but I could see he was struggling to pin down his memory. “Lacey was being attacked by this guy…”
Interesting. Let’s see what he says about the guy. Will he remember it was vampire?
“And then…”
“Don’t worry about it, darling,” Jules cut him off. “You shouldn’t think about that now.”
“No, I remember… I remember he was a drug dealer. Scary dude. And there was a dog.”
“Let’s not talk about the dog.” Now she turned her cool green eyes on me. “What exactly were you doing around a drug dealer?”
“Oh, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” This was a legitimate question. I’d already been briefed by Mr. Stroud on how to answer. “I was making a delivery for my boss and wound up in a cafe that was actually a front for a drug lord. It was all just a big misunderstanding.”
“Uh huh,” she replied.
There really wasn’t a good answer as to how you ended up in a drug lord’s den.
“And what do you do?” I redirected.
“I own a hair salon out in West Hills.” She beamed. That explained the streaks of blue in her hair. You really would think blue streaks would look bad, but honestly she had great looking hair. “I have three stylists and a make-up artist working for me.”
“She turned out to be quiet the business woman,” Sam added proudly.
“That’s where Sam and I grew up. We were homecoming king and queen at El Camino High School back in 2010.”
“I’m sure you guys were super cute.”
“Thanks.” She grinned with tight lips. “We were engaged, but we both decided that before we made the big leap we needed to expand our horizons. That was when Sam got accepted to the police academy, and I bought my own salon. Actually, it wa
s my Aunt Martha’s salon, and I’d been working there for a couple years. But we have a deal where I’m paying her off in monthly installments. The place will be mine in just under fifty-eight months.”
“I really like the blue in your hair,” I said.
“Thanks.” She ran her hand through it. “You’d be cute with a color too. Maybe a deep purple. That always looks so good on chestnut brunettes like you.”
I thought about myself with purple hair for a moment. If I were being honest, I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to give it a try. Also, I feared I might look a little like a cartoon witch with crazy hair. A broom and a black cat would make the stereotype complete.
As we talked, she started to let her guard down. So did I. She wasn’t so bad. I could tell she still really cared for Sam and was genuinely concerned about him.
Just like me.
After a few more minutes of talking about hair, hair salons and the business of hair salons, we both looked over to see that Sam had fallen asleep.
“I guess I better go. Let him get some rest,” I whispered, standing up and slinging my messenger bag across my body.
“Thanks for coming to see him,” she said. “I know he likes to have visitors.”
“Nice meeting you,” I said as I headed toward the curtain in the doorway.
“But…” she added and I turned. “The doctors also said he really needs his rest. We need to limit his visitors. If you know what I mean.”
“Got it.” I nodded. I knew exactly what she meant.
Chapter Fourteen
Because I cut my visit with Sam short, I arrived at work twenty minutes early. Since Morty wasn’t there, the library had been closed all day.
I had been trying to call my dad all day too. I wanted to know if he had any new information. And I hoped he’d changed his mind about me staying out of this situation. As usual, my calls went straight to voicemail.
One of the security guys, a half-giant named Davos, came down and unlocked the doors. Logging into the library’s computer system, I found the library inbox was filled with inter-office research and book requests. Still learning the ropes around here, this was going to take me half the night to work through.
Hansel and Gretel, the life-size paper dolls, stood motionless in the corner of the circulation room. Just the sight of Mr. Morty’s lifeless assistants made me sad.
There were only a couple requests that needed immediate attention, so I got on those as fast as I could because I wanted to do a little snooping around. On my drive over to work, I wondered if, like Stryker, Morty had suspected a mermaid. If he did, he may have left some research or notes in his office.
This still didn't make a whole lot of sense. The idea of his brother running off with a mermaid or committing suicide because he was in love with one just didn’t feel right.
But something was going on. The fugitive necromancer had disappeared farther south, and now Morty and his brother were gone as well. Maybe they were connected, maybe they weren't.
After I handled the urgent requests, I went to Mr. Morty’s office, flipped on the light, and stood in the doorway of his grand office with its elegant dark wood built-in shelves neatly filled with his personal book collection. He had a nice selection of supernatural histories and biographies, along with quite a few impressive first editions of various sorts. Everything was meticulously catalogued and organized.
It made me think of my own bookshelves that were now completely color coded.
Even the surface of his large mahogany desk looked neat and tidy with only a stack of thin files on the left side of his desk and two gold pens to the right.
A tinge of guilt hit me as I shuffled through the files, like I was snooping through his personal papers, but it turned out they were mainly just invoices for library materials and various budgetary items.
The credenza behind his desk had three perfect stacks of books and files. It didn’t take long to realize that each stack was a pile of research on a different case or issue of the Society. One stack pertained to legal witching issues, another on territorial claims by various African Voodoo regions, and the last was a collection of faerie love poetry.
Nothing on Mermaids, Malibu, or missing middle-aged men.
There was no computer in his office. I guess because Morty was old school. I think he was actually old school before old school was even invented. He did everything the old-fashioned way, including keeping a paper card catalogue. It was only the library assistants who used the computerized system.
I took a seat in Morty’s chair to think.
This was a man who made a living dealing with research, yet there was no research regarding his missing brother? That didn’t make sense to me.
I felt like I'd arrived at a dead-end.
Of course it was possible that whatever information he had uncovered, he’d taken with him when he left the other night.
After sitting for a few more moments, I stood to head back out into the main library to get to work. It was going to be a long night. Just inside the office doorway, a chill of cold air brushed over my left shoulder. I nearly jumped out of my skin as the Headie, the headless machete-carrying ghost, whooshed past me.
“Oh my stars, Headie!” I cried out as she sailed on, her white gown flowing behind her.
She’d come from the back of Mr. Morty’s office, gliding through the left side of my body, veered right in a hooking motion, and swung past the private bookcase out his office door.
When she sailed away out of sight, I breathed a sigh of relief.
But then, an instant later, she reappeared. She’d gone around and come back through, following the exact same path. The temperature in the room dropped precipitously with her repeated presence.
I frowned. Hadn’t Morty said that Headie took the same path, over and over, from the back of the library shelves straight through the library and out the glass windows near the entrance? She was off course. Just now she'd come in through the floor in the back of the Mr. Morty's office, slowly ascending until she got to the bookshelves and vanished through the office door.
For a third time, Headie appeared and repeated the new route.
Was she altering her path to tell me something?
A small patch of ice had formed on the carved wooden side panel of the built in bookshelves along the far wall of Mr. Morty’s office.
She was trying to point something out to me. I ran my hand along the ice while scanning the shelves. Nothing looked unusual. As I worked my way down the shelves toward the floor, she reappeared for the fourth time. She sailed right over me, making her quiet little moaning sound.
“What are you trying to tell me, Headie?” I asked, but she seemed oblivious.
I knelt down to get a better angle. A blast of cold air hit my face as the ice maiden passed above me, her ghostly hand brushing the carved wood molding that ran up from the floor to ceiling.
Once she’d gone, I examined the long, plain side panel that she'd grazed. I pulled on it but nothing happened. It held firm. I pulled harder and still nothing happened.
"Hmmm?" I muttered to myself, confused. I took a step back and stared at the area. When I was growing up, my mom had a built-in handleless cabinet in our dining room that sprung open when you pushed on it. Using both hands, I pushed on the whole panel. Something clicked and it popped open from the right, revealing a very narrow hidden cupboard.
“Nice job, Headie,” I murmured, gazing with wonder at the weird little secret compartment. It was large enough to almost be a small closet.
Stepping inside, I examined the four shelves. It was nearly empty except for the bottom shelf that held two books and one black leather file folder.
“Thank you, Headie.” But she had already wafted away, not to reappear again today.
I pulled out the books and the file and settled in at Mr. Morty’s desk. The first book was entitled Breaking Hexes, Curses and Spells. Interesting. Did he believe his brother had been unwillingly hexed? Mermaids didn’t us
e traditional means as hexes, curses, or spells. They had a natural glamour powerful enough to enchant any human they were interested in.
The real surprise came when I opened the black leather folder. I expected to find papers or documents. Instead, a handful of small envelopes made out of ornate antiqued paper spilled out. Looping handwriting in ink scrawled across the front of the envelope reading:
My Darling Enchantress.
No address. Nothing else. Which meant that either they’d been hand delivered, or possibly they'd been intercepted and never sent.
I pulled out one of the letters and read:
To My Beautiful Sea Goddess,
I can’t wait to see you again.
My heart aches to hear your perfect voice drifting out over the turning seas and past the craggy shores to my old and imperfect ears. But ears that become young again when they hear your sweet melody…
I scanned the rest of the flowery language and vows of eternal, undying love. I felt a little creepy reading someone else’s personal mail.
At the bottom, it was eventually signed From Your One True and Eternal Love. No name. There were no other clues as to the identity of the writer or who specifically they had been writing to. The over-the-top language made me suspect that the writer had been enchanted by a strong love potion or a love spell.
Were these letters from Mr. Morty? Or had he somehow gotten ahold of letters his brother had written?
After skimming the rest of the letters—all very similar—I thumbed through the second book on the Ocean Kingdom and discovered a small slip of paper had been used to bookmark a section near the end of the book.
It marked a detailed description of sirens, describing them as a small species of lesser aquatic paranormals who would sometimes use their alluring song to temp sailors and their ships toward jagged shorelines, where the men would crash and be captured by their enemies.
It described sirens as a petty mercenary species, not strong enough to overpower or enchant a full grown human man for very long. Instead, they were willing to sell their services to the highest bidder. Also, their song was at its most alluring during a full moon, when it was amplified and sweetened by the moon’s cosmic energy.
