by Nova Nelson
“Not much more to tell. A minute after the judges ate my queso, a breeze blew in a small horde of spirits, which attached themselves to the High Council.”
He searched the air above his head playfully. “Are they here now?”
“No. They didn’t attach to you. Or to Liberty.”
“Isn’t that suspicious?” he said, his grin like a deep fissure in the earth.
“It’s true, the timing can’t be ignored. I didn’t do anything to conjure those spirits, which means someone else must have, and the only person who had the opportunity to tamper with my entry was you.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked and he leaned back again. “That’s simply not true. Besides, the spiritual realm and I don’t exactly see eye-to-eye. I don’t have the magic to conjure anything from that plane. And even if I did, I’d rather not. I deal solely in this plane, making sure those who wish never to cross over get their wish.” Fiona refilled his glass with a quick hello to me, then scurried away again. “Speaking of which, you’ve already crossed over, if I’m not mistaken. If you decide once is enough, I would be happy to make you my progeny. All you need do is ask.” He chuckled. “Well, that’s not all you need do. There would be other, um, duties assigned do you. Ones your little boyfriend might not appreciate.”
“Ew. Not interested. For a bunch of reasons.” I needed to get us back on track. “So, you’re saying you didn’t tamper with the queso?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. But you seem to have missed the other important point I raised, which is that I am not the only one who had access to it.”
I tried not to show my interest, but I wasn’t nearly as schooled in that sort of thing as he was, and his thin nostrils flared with satisfaction at my outward signs of eagerness. “Sheriff Bloom asked to have a word with me regarding the missing gold, and during that time, I stepped from the tent, and when I returned, the final entry had been dropped off. Meaning someone went in there while I was out.”
I already knew what he was going to say before I asked, but I had to cover my bases anyway. “Which entry was that?”
“The one from Franco’s Pizza.”
“And who dropped it off?”
He shrugged. “Not sure. The Stringfellow boy is around here somewhere. If you can wrest his attention away from Ms. Moody, who is one tasty treat, he might be able to tell you more.”
I already intended to speak with Donovan, but I wouldn’t let Malavic know that. So, instead, I said nothing before turning and walking off.
“No ‘thank you?’” he hollered after me, but I ignored him.
As much as I hated to admit it, it didn’t seem like Count Sebastian Malavic had been the one to tamper with the queso.
That left only two possible suspects. Ted and Donovan.
I already knew things would be especially unpleasant with Donovan, so I opted to track down Ted first, hoping he would say something to the extent of, “Yep, the dread thing totally could have caused that, and here’s how you fix it.” That way, talking with Donovan would become unnecessary, and I could wrap things up and get out of this crowded pub where everyone around me was becoming progressively wobblier.
I found the grim reaper in the corner, playing a game with Landon Hawker that looked like a mixture of shuffleboard and a mine field. As I approached, Ted slid a red puck down the board, knocking a blue one into a gutter at the side of the board, where it puffed into fine sand and collapsed. Ted pumped a fist in the air, causing his baggy sleeve to slide back, revealing the bones of his forearm beyond his gloved hand. Landon shook his head and pushed his glasses farther up his nose.
“Nice one,” I said, having no idea if that were true.
Ted turned quickly toward my voice, his hood rippling around his obscured face. Despite the density of the crowd, there was a good bit of space around Landon and Ted, which I assumed was Ted’s doing. Like Grim, he usually preserved a spacious radius around himself. I guessed that Landon was pretty tipsy if he was willing to play a game, any game, against Death.
“Nora! I didn’t know you were here!” Ted’s enthusiasm caused his dry voice to shudder in a rattling vibrato.
“Just got here. Who’s winning?”
Landon pointed at Ted. “This guy. Can’t beat him.”
Can’t or don’t want to, I wondered. Landon was young, perhaps early twenties, but he wasn’t stupid.
“I already told you,” Ted said, slapping Landon on the back and sending a visible shiver through the witch’s body, “nobody can beat Death. Ha!”
“What about Sebastian?” I asked. The two of them were good friends who went waaaay back.
“Oh, right. Well, he can. The man’s incredible at scufflepuck. But I’ll win one of these days. Heh.”
I smiled like I cared about the rivalry. “Hey, I wanted to ask you something really quick. In private.”
His head jerked back and he said, “Is everything okay?”
“Oh, totally. I just, um. Well, do you have a second?”
“Of course. It’s Landon’s turn.” He turned to the North Wind witch. “No cheating or I’ll come for you. Heh.”
Landon’s eyes became large saucers and he nodded emphatically. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Ted.”
We found a bit of privacy by the restroom hallway, and I jumped right into it. “I’m not mad at you. I just want to know—”
“About the Guilt Gale?”
That stopped me in my tracks. Ted knew about it. “The what?”
10
“The Guilt Gale,” said Ted. “The thing that blew in right before the winner was announced at the cook-off. That’s what you want to know about, right?”
“Yes. I … didn’t know it had a name.”
“Oh, it has a name, alright. You see it once, and you don’t soon forget.”
“You’ve seen it before?”
“Yeah,” he waved it off, “but not for hundreds of years.”
“O-kay.” The knowledge had planted a new crop of questions that burst forth in my mind. I tried to hold on to the main thread. “Is a Guilt Gale something that could result from that thing you did with your sickle in Medium Rare yesterday morning?”
He tilted his head to the side like a confused puppy. “Nooo. But I can see how you might think that. What I did was send a wave of fear through folks within a certain radius. I call it a Sickle Tickle. Heh.”
I tried to force a smile, but I’m fairly sure it presented itself as a grimace.
“Yeah, I guess it’s just funny to me,” he continued. “I see where you’re going with this, though. You think something happened to your queso”—he pronounced it kway-so, and I struggled not to correct him—“that set the Guilt Gale on the High Council. You’re onto something, I believe. But it wasn’t the Sickle Tickle. Fear and guilt do run with the same crowd, but they’re vastly different emotions. Besides, the Guilt Gale doesn’t work from the inside out; it imposes the feeling from the outside in.”
I was starting to get it. “Hence the ancestors.”
He nodded and tapped a gloved finger to the area underneath his hood where his nose would have been, were he to have one. “Exactly. No one can stir guilt in a person like family. Trust me. I understand that better than anyone.”
Before I could stop myself, I said, “You have a family?”
“Of course.”
“Sorry, is that offensive? I didn’t mean for it to be.”
“Not at all, Nora. You could never offend me. Sure, some creatures don’t have proper parents, but reapers do. Granted, we’re not brought into being quite the same way as most creatures—it involves a gruesome battle to the death and often a series of decapitations—but we still have parents. And siblings.”
“None in Eastwind, though, right?”
He nodded slowly. “Indeed. We don’t get along well with family, so we make a point to live in separate realms if possible, and definitely no more than one to a town. Otherwise, things get ugly, and a lot of people die. Heh. I mean, seriously
. It can be quite a bloodbath.”
“No family reunions, then.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, we had one once. Quite a spectacle. Of course, no one but us lived to tell the tale. And we don’t like to talk about it.”
“Then I won’t press you for details.”
“One thing you should know about the Guilt Gale is that it has to be intentionally placed. As with most magic, intention is half of it. That holds especially true for this. I promise you I had nothing to do with what happened today.” He bowed his head toward me and pressed a gloved finger into my shoulder, making my arm tingle. “And neither did you.”
“That’s a relief. Thanks, Ted.”
“You’re up, Ted.” It was Landon.
With a parting nod of his hood, Ted returned to the scufflepuck table to take his turn.
“Everything alright, Nora?” Landon asked.
“Yeah, everything’s fine.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said bluntly. “It’s about what happened at the cook-off isn’t it?”
I decided to play dumb. This wasn’t a thing I needed spreading around town before I could fix it. “What do you mean?”
“You had this look on your face when you accepted your award, like something had gone terribly wrong. And right before that, the gust of wind.”
“It was just a gust of wind.”
He leaned his head forward, arching an incredulous brow as he stared up at me through thick eyelashes. “Nora. I’m a North Wind. I may not be able to see ghosts like you, but I’m sensitive to them. Part of the gig. North Winds are the closest thing to a Fifth Wind in a lot of ways. I know something blew in on that wind, I just don’t know what.”
I did have a strange impulse to tell Landon what had happened. He struck me as someone who liked getting to the bottom of things, and so long as he wasn’t also the type to throw a Fifth Wind witch under the bus, I could probably use more people like him in my life. But I wasn’t sure that I could trust him, and I also didn’t want to spend more time in Sheehan’s than I had to.
There was still one more person I needed to speak with.
“You’re right,” I said, trying to pacify him. “Something blew in. But it’s nothing dangerous, and it’s under control. Don’t worry about it.” I smiled reassuringly and fought back the impulse to pat him on his blond mop of hair. There was no way he’d appreciate that. “I gotta find Tanner and get out of here, so I’ll see you around. Good luck with the game.”
His lips pressed into a thin line told me he had more to say, but he nodded curtly and walked back to the scufflepuck match instead.
Donovan, Tanner, and Evangeline were lifting their drinks to toast as I pushed through the crowd to meet them.
“There she is!” Tanner announced as his eyes found me.
Donovan and Eva cheered.
Never in my life did I think Donovan Stringfellow would cheer upon seeing me. Even knowing what I knew now about the way he felt about me, I wouldn’t assume cheering would be an option. Not when his feelings for me caused him little less than misery.
“What’re you drinking, Nora?” Tanner asked, turning toward the bar to flag down the nearest bartender.
“Nothing,” I said. “Tanner, you know I’m not here to drink.”
“Not here to drink?” Donovan shouted. “Drinking is the only thing keeping me in this hot, messy riot in the making. Why on Gaia’s earth would you come here to do anything but drink?”
Eva laughed at the show he was putting on, and I tried not to let it bother me. Donovan was drunk. Eva might be drunk too. Tanner was on his way and giving the effort his all. In a bit I would leave here with Tanner, and Donovan and Eva would … what?
It’s not your business, Nora. You should be relieved.
I leaned toward Donovan and said, “Can I have a word with you?”
He blinked rapidly and his eyes opened wide. “With me?”
I nodded.
“What for?”
“Nora,” Tanner said. A warning. Yes, I’d promised not to treat Donovan as a suspect, but he was the only one I had left.
“I’m just clearing his name,” I said. “I’ve done the same for you, you know.”
Donovan’s head jerked back, giving himself a double chin. “Clearing my—”
A holler rose up from the opposite side of the room. I recognized the slurred speech immediately. Seamus Shaw. “Next round’s on us!” I assumed the other component of “us” was Lucent and wondered if Lucent had agreed to that or if his buddy’s spending habits were officially out of control. Either way, when the rest of the bar began cheering, I accepted that there was no possibility of a coherent conversation in this place, so I grabbed Donovan by the upper arm and pulled him after me through the thick jungle of bodies toward somewhere quieter.
Once we were out of Sheehan’s and around the corner of the building, I stopped and faced him.
“Am I being kidnapped?” he said. “Or is Deputy Ashcroft arresting me?” He held out his wrists, offering them to me. “If you cuff me, I won’t refuse. In fact, I’ve been fantasizing about that for a while now.”
My stomach tightened. “Oh, knock it off.”
“Tell me why you dragged me out here to a back alley for a little alone time then, if not to replay our romantic jaunt into the Deadwoods.”
I hadn’t expected to be dealing with a moderately drunk Donovan, so I hadn’t anticipated the possibility of him bringing up the past so brashly.
I decided to catch him off guard. “I know you did it.”
His head twisted to the side while his eyes remained locked on me. “Did what?”
“At the cook-off.”
“What, you mean lost? Did you pull me all the way out here and away from my drink to brag about your win?” He pooched out his lips and nodded. “Well played. I would’ve done the same, probably.”
I held up a hand. “Stop. Just stop it with the ‘we’re the same’ stuff. It’s just a bunch of unicorn swirls you’re trying to sell me so that I dump Tanner and choose you instead.”
“Yeah.” He said it like a flick between the eyes. “Duh. But it’s not swirls. It’s the truth. If you don’t like me, it just means you don’t like yourself.”
“Oh, is psychoanalyzing an East Wind witch power?” Ach! He’d derailed me again! “No, I mean with the spirits. At the cook-off. You tampered with our entry. It had to have been you. I’ve already talked with others, and all signs point to Donovan.”
His top lip curled into a half snarl. “You don’t get it, do you? I wanted Franco’s to win, sure. But I’m not trying to ruin you. Tampering with food—Nora, if it got around that your food wasn’t safe to eat, Medium Rare’s reputation would be as good as destroyed. I don’t want to see that happen to you or Tanner.” He moved forward quickly, causing me to step away on reflex. But my back bumped into the brick wall of Sheehan’s.
I was pinned as he took another step forward, his hands rubbing slowly up my arms. “I just want you to come around.” His piercing blue eyes cut into mine, and I felt like I was tumbling into a clear spring sky. “And I know you will. At least, I have to believe you will. Or else the next time I see you and Tanner leave together might be the one that breaks me.”
He wasn’t going to kiss me, but I could sense the restraint it took from him, his lips only a foot from mine.
“You swear you didn’t do it?” I said. My voice came out as a choked whisper.
“Pinkie swear,” he said, holding up a hand.
I chuckled on an exhale—I’d forgot that this was a thing they actually did here—and crossed pinkies with him.
“Do me a favor,” I said after.
“Anything.”
“Let Tanner know I wasn’t feeling well and decided to head home. Without him.”
Donovan leaned forward the slightest bit, and it felt like my heart stopped.
And, in that brief moment, I knew I wouldn’t stop him if he’d tried it.
But he decided be
tter of it, I guess, and nodded. “I’ll let him know.”
It wasn’t until Donovan turned the corner and was out of sight, leaving me alone with my back against the wall, that I realized my heart was racing a mile a minute.
Donovan hadn’t tampered with the queso. I believed him about that. I supposed it was good news that Tanner’s best friend hadn’t recklessly tried to ruin his business. I should be relieved.
But I wasn’t. Because if it wasn’t Count Malavic or Ted or Donovan, who did that leave?
11
The morning shift at Medium Rare was chaotic in a new, special way.
For one, everyone was demanding they try our award-winning chips and queso. But for obvious reasons, we weren’t prepared to roll that out to the public just yet. Not until we could be sure it was safe.
I made the same excuse over and over again: someone had left the freezer open overnight and the queso had gone bad. We’d make a new batch as soon as possible.
People bought the excuse without question; everything in Eastwind was in a state of disarray after the previous night’s partying that stretched well into the early hours of the morning.
Which brings me to the other reason the rush was chaotic in a new, special way: it was almost entirely families. Those without small children, who’d had the freedom to do as they pleased, blurred judgment and all, were too hungover to drag their hides into Medium Rare before noon.
The exception, of course, was Ted, who showed up at his usual time, cheery as ever.
Apparently, you don’t feel like death the morning after a bender if you already are Death.
Tanner was not Death, though, and boy was he struggling. I didn’t begrudge him, even though it meant I was left picking up the slack.
And the tips. I made sure of that.
“You look quite chipper,” said Mrs. Tomlinson as I refreshed her coffee. “Arlin and I never used to look so put together the day after Lunasa, did we, hun?”
