by Raven Snow
Unlike Melanie's house, which I'd learned was sparsely decorated, most furnishings missing due to finical need, her shop was packed with items. It resembled a magical library, though there were surprisingly few books. The shelves were lined with talismans, potions, and various ingredients. Cooper's eyes were wide as he took all this in, and I made a mental note to watch him like a hawk. There were dark fairy tales about children wandering off in a witch's abode.
Melanie Gross, my long time enemy, was standing behind the counter, talking with a customer in a polite manner she'd never showed me. Her hair was long and blonde, flowing down her back. Apart from her large nose— proportionate to her ego and the amount of attention she required— she was quite pretty.
Her prettiness meant that most people didn’t see the beast lurking beneath her façade: greed. The woman would do anything to anyone to get ahead. That usually put her at the top of my suspect pool, because while she was practically without morals, she was also penniless. That was not a good combination.
Her friendliness cut off abruptly when she caught sight of me. "Harper. Didn't I tell you to stay away from my property?"
"After you were done using me to further your reputation, yes, you did," I said cheerfully, walking up to the counter.
Cooper followed behind me, so I didn't have to reach out and grab his ear like the stereotypical stepmother. Not that I was, I thought with a panic. The cat was right behind Cooper, making me feel like I was leading a conga line. That usually would have been enough to put me in a good mood, too.
Sliding the list across the counter, I said, "But I'm not here for me. And I don't think she'd appreciate you denying her service."
I tried not to take satisfaction in Melanie paling and running off to find the items like someone had taken a cattle prod to her butt. But it was very hard.
While she was busy, I turned to Cooper, who was eying a jade dragon in the corner. "Have you talked to your dad yet today?"
He shook his head. "My dad−"
"Yeah, yeah. Well, my disco skate was broken into last night."
Eyes widening, he puffed his chest out not unlike Wyatt did from time to time. "Don't worry, Harper. My dad will find who did it and throw them in jail forever."
Cooper had an oversimplified vision of the criminal justice system. I hadn't yet broken him of it, but I was working at it on the daily. It didn't help that his dad was a cop, and therefore, in his eyes, every part of the system worked like a well-oiled machine. Cops were superheroes to him, and while that was cute, it was also a little annoying. I wondered if I'd ever been that naive.
She came back with a sack filled with goodies, but stopped short of ringing them up. Like with my grandma, she caught sight of my cat. Unlike Gran, there was a greedy kind of glint in her eyes.
“What a hideous creature,” she said, and in one of those inexplicable moments, I knew she was lying. “Where did you find it?”
"Sorry," I said, taking my change, my items, and my followers from the store. "I'm supposed to stay off your property."
Chapter Four
As soon as I exited the store, my ears were assaulted with the sounds of teenagers being rowdy. I wouldn’t have even looked over if I hadn’t recognized one of the voices.
There, all decked out in black like the rest of her new, bad-news friends, was my office girl, Amber. She was leaning against Edward and looking up at him with pure adoration as he smoked a cigarette. I recognized that look well enough, I thought with a sigh.
Though Edward was lanky with greasy hair, Amber didn’t seem to mind in the least. Part of me wanted to go pull her away from that crowd, but I knew from personal experience that it would do no good. At least she wasn’t getting up to shenanigans at the level I had at her age.
Or was she?
It was an unsettling thought, but the lock hadn’t been broken at the Funky Wheel, and Amber knew where I kept my spare. Plus, I doubted even Edward could magic her up a whole wardrobe, and that cost money. Money I knew for a fact neither Amber nor any of the Cruz family had.
Shaking those troublesome thoughts away, I got into the car with my kid and my new cat.
Cooper sat in speculative silence for a few moments while we headed home. "You don't like Miss Gross."
It wasn’t what I expected him to say, but kids were rarely so predictable. "Well spotted. She makes me break out in hives."
"Where did you get the cat?" he asked after digesting that little tidbit.
"Found it in my disco skate. Wanna name him?"
He brightened at that, which brought a smile to my face. As soon as we were parked, he reached behind the seat and pulled out an unimpressed pussy cat, cuddling him close. Then, he charged inside with his new friend, leaving me lagging behind in the dust. By the time I got inside, he was already giving the feline the grand tour.
"He's kind of big, isn't he?" Cooper mused as I followed him into the kitchen.
He sat the cat down on the counter and I winced, thinking of Wyatt's reaction to dirt or hair anywhere in his spotless house. Cooper was usually pretty neat too, taking after his dad in almost everything— but apparently, the excitement of a new pet had overwhelmed his precautions.
"How about Whale?" Cooper beamed up at me, and I tried to return the smile. It was exactly the kind of name an eleven-year-old would pick out.
I gave the cat a dubious look. "I don't see how it could make him any less appealing. Whale, it is."
Giving a squawk, Whale jumped down from the counter, prowling off into the house like he already owned it.
"Let's just hope he's potty-trained— for your father's sake."
Cooper grabbed my arm. "What if he doesn't let us keep him? My dad said I couldn't have a pet."
It was an echo of something he'd said to me a while back. "Did he say I couldn't have a pet?"
His smile came back after he screwed up his face for a moment, thinking. "He didn't!"
"What a relief."
I poured him a bowl of chocolate cereal— the only thing either of the men in my life would eat. Unlike a typical eleven-year-old, he sat patiently and quietly waiting for me. But then again, he was his father’s son and likely working out something in that big head of his. I preferred to keep thinking to a minimum.
“Are you going to work on a case in secret again?” He shoved a big mouthful of sugar into his mouth, some of it rolling down his chin. “I could help.”
“You can’t even chew properly,” I pointed out. “But your dad has given me permission— not that I need it.”
He looked troubled by this. “I need Dad’s permission to do stuff.”
Obviously, this move had upset the balance in the household, and Cooper needed to know where everyone stood. I was all too happy to enlighten him.
“See, Coop, it’s simple,” I said, resting a hand on his shoulder. “You need permission from your dad or me to do anything, and your dad needs my permission. I’m the only free agent in this house.”
“Oh.”
God, I couldn’t wait until he parroted that to Wyatt.
I kicked my feet up on the chair next to us, earning me a scolding look from the kid. “I don’t know if I’m going to investigate. Might just leave it to the police.” Not that they would do anything.
Cooper’s look was just as dubious and filled with suspicion as his father’s had been. “Why?”
I shrugged. “It’s not really my thing— just a regular break-in. No magic, hardly any losses, and very little danger. It’s your dad’s dream Harper case, not mine.”
My phone rang, spouting the best of the disco age. I tapped my finger along with it while I answered. “If you've called to invite me to your little tea party with my grandmother, I'm not interested. I don't want that woman near anything I'm going to drink. Been poisoned enough to last a life time, thank you."
"Your grandma left hours ago," Oliver told me. He was slightly out of breath. "But I need you to come pick me up."
"At the shop?"
"Not exactl
y."
Fifteen minutes later, I pulled up to the curb about a block down from Melanie Gross's house— which I was intimately familiar with. Oliver, who'd been sitting on said curb in his boxers, jumped up and tried to get into the car. Unfortunately for him, I'd locked the door.
When I rolled down the window, he gritted his teeth, saying, "Open the door, Harper."
"You slept with Melanie Gross— my enemy. And then have the nerve to call me for a ride home? Please tell me this was the first time."
He crossed his arms, staying mute. With disgust, I let him in the car. I felt more outraged— not to mention a little nauseous— than hurt. I was more than aware by now what brain Oliver predominantly thought with.
"The first time I was drunk," he said sullenly, "and she was there."
"Classy, classy."
He reached around in the back of the car, looking for my spare pair of sweats. Wyatt had gotten me into the habit of being prepared, and though I was usually grateful for it, this time, I wanted Oliver to feel the cold on his bare legs and butt for a little longer.
"What about this time?" I asked after it seemed he was going to let the matter drop. "Was she that good in bed? Oh, god, don't tell me you're in love with her. You'll have to get out of my car if you are."
"Don't be dramatic," said the most dramatic man I'd ever met. "I left something at her house last time, that's all."
I raised an eyebrow at him. "And since you were in the neighborhood for this ‘something,’ you figured you'd sleep with her again. Man, but I don't understand guys."
He scrubbed a hand down his face, shooting me a hateful look. "You're going to love this."
"I doubt that."
"She took my something, alright? I went over there under the pretense of sleeping with her to get it back."
"Would this something be your self-respect?"
He didn't appear to be amused, which was strange, because I thought I was being quite humorous. "It's a talisman— a good luck charm my grandma made for me. Now that it's gone, I haven't been having the best of luck."
I parked beside his car in the parking lot next to my grandma's store, laughing as I got out of the car. Witches and warlocks were a superstitious bunch, but Oliver, despite the capes, had always been very down to earth. I couldn't imagine him being so silly as to believe in a good luck charm.
He was grim as he stepped out of my bug, and his foot caught on something that looked suspiciously like thin air. A short yell later, and he was crumpled on the ground like discarded trash. I stared at him for a moment before continuing to laugh— but louder this time, my whole body getting into it.
Brushing himself off angrily, he got back on his feet, a big scrape on his chin. "And people think I'm cold."
"Oliver," I said, grinning despite his sour expression, "it's all in your head. Unless your grandma was some powerful witch−"
"Voodoo priestess, actually," he said glumly.
"Oh."
He kicked his shoes against the ground. "I keep tripping over stuff, things break around me for no reason, and my capes are getting ripped left and right." The last part was a whine.
"Did you talk to Gran about it?"
If possible, he looked even more forlorn. "She says there's nothing to do but get the doll back. But I can't find where Melanie's keeping it, and she won't return it. I think she's a little pissed I didn't call..."
"Wait, it's a doll?" I pressed a hand over my mouth to keep from giggling. "Of course, it's a doll."
"You're dead to me."
My good times were cut short when I caught sight of the door into Gran's magic shop. It was hanging wide open, the lock malformed like someone had broken it. Oliver and I met eyes in a moment of silent communication and moved inside.
Like with the Wheel, the inside was completely trashed. Everything that had once been neatly on a shelf was littering the floor, broken or in pieces. Someone had taken a hard object to the glass, shattering it with a thoroughness that I found a little odd.
Unlike at the Wheel, we found a little man behind all the shattered glass, staring down at the crowbar in his hand with horror. His head snapped up when he saw us, and I recognized him as Hardy, the old man that owned the hardware store.
Oliver was calling the police in the next moment, while I still looked around in stunned silence.
Still holding the damning evidence, Hardy said, "I don't know why I did this."
Yeah, that made two of us.
Wyatt arrived before the squad car did, and I wondered if he specifically listened to his scanner for instances that set off his "Harper" radar. He looked pained when he walked into the store and saw all the damage, mentally calculating the cost and manpower. He was probably thinking about how this was all going to fall on his shoulders. Gran had made him her go-to guy for labor.
He pressed his hand against the small of my back, an innocent touch, while the officers on duty took my statement. The heat that filled my body was anything but innocent. Underneath all that need, though, I felt the familiar tingling of interest, of a different kind of need that could be just as exciting.
Maybe this was the case for me, after all.
The officer who was interviewing me went bug-eyed a moment before I saw her, and I couldn't blame him. Standing just inside the doorway, my grandma looked like a woman possessed. She surveyed the damage with the arrogance of a queen— or of a god. And I could read Hardy's untimely demise in her rage-filled eyes.
Without a word, Wyatt moved from my side to hers, speaking quietly so no one could hear. At first, I didn't think she was paying any attention to him, but after a few minutes in which Hardy's heart stayed inside his chest, I figured she must have. Part of me admired Wyatt for his "take charge" attitude and the affect it had on everyone. Another part of me was annoyed that it came so easily to him.
They dragged Hardy toward the squad car to take him to the station. He didn't resist, but he, strangely, kept his scared eyes on me the whole time. Over and over, he repeated that he didn't know why he'd done this. Each time he said it, the words resonated deep within me, but I'd been doing this long enough to not take any words at face value.
Before they slammed the door on him, he reached out and grabbed my arm like a dying man at salvation. He was so quick, even Wyatt couldn't have stopped him.
"Julia." He called me by my grandma's name. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me. Please, believe me."
I pried his fingers from my flesh gently, patting his hand before returning it to the car. "I do."
While they pulled away, Wyatt came over and wrapped his arm around me, dropping a quick kiss to my jaw. "Why did he call you Julia?"
I nodded toward Gran, who was fuming at Oliver for lack of a better outlet. "I guess we look alike, if you think about it. Give or take a thousand years or so."
"You," she spat, coming over to me. Her apron flowed in the wind and looked a bit like it was drenched in blood, the color was so vivid. "You will find the one responsible for this."
"Well, since you asked so nicely."
Gran didn't pay my sharp tongue any mind, too angry with the burglar to properly scold me. A girl could get used to that. She gave the damage one last disparaging look and then walked off into the night. I was about to call her back to offer her a ride, but she disappeared between one breath and the next.
Wyatt tensed next to me, and I was right along with him, but for different reasons. Though he'd never said anything after we became involved, I knew Wyatt wasn't fond of magic. He put up with it because it was a part of me, and he loved me. But every time something off the charts weird happened, a little part of me died waiting for him to shove me away for being such a freak.
“Can you do that?” he asked quietly.
Before I could answer, Oliver piped in. “Please. I can’t even do that.” He yanked the door shut, though the hinges were bent a little. “If you two are done canoodling, I’m going to take my leave.”
As he walked away, the le
ft leg of his pants, still caught in the door, ripped all the way up to the butt. He froze at the sound and the sudden breeze to his nether regions. Though after the day he’d had, I’d expect he’d be getting used to it.
“Walk tall, Belafonte,” I said with a laugh as he waddled away from us, trying to keep a little to the imagination.
Chapter Five
Though I went to bed that night with a smile on my face at my best friend's misfortune, it was wiped clean the next morning when Wyatt dropped a bomb on me at breakfast. It was a metaphorical one, but given the nature of the information, I would have rather he'd dropped an actual atom bomb on my head.
His mother had invited me to a book club meeting this afternoon, and he'd said yes on my behalf.
He swallowed his mouthful of cereal, looking over at me with caution. "She offered last night after you'd gone to bed. The two of you haven't gotten to know each other yet, so I thought..." Trailing off at my murderous expression, he said, "I'm in trouble, aren't I?"
"There's a reason your mother and I are strangers— she doesn't like me," I hissed at him, my breakfast forgotten in front of me.
You knew things were truly serious when I'd lost my appetite.
"She just doesn't know you." His thumb stroked my palm in slow circles. "Just give it a chance."
Cooper and Whale walked into the kitchen at that moment, cutting off all arguments I would have made. The last thing I wanted was for Cooper to know his grandmother hated me. It might have made him feel like he had to pick sides, and that wasn't fair to the kid— even though I secretly hoped he would've picked me. Once an acceptance-craving outcast, always an acceptance-craving outcast.
While Cooper scarfed down his chocolate cereal and snuck a few pieces to Whale when he thought neither Wyatt nor I were looking, I stared moodily into my now cold oatmeal. Were there going to be a lot of people at this book club meeting or was the put down Mrs. Bennett gave me going to be private?
Wyatt kissed me quickly before heading off to work. The quick aspect of the embrace was probably so I wouldn't have a chance to bite his lip for getting me into this.
