by Harper Lin
Jake got into his car and drove away.
Not even three of Mrs. Park’s pork sausage patties, sandwiched in their respective English muffins, could get me to quit worrying about the book.
“Oh,” I said, when Min asked me what was wrong. He’d been showing me a slideshow of his trip to the south of Spain, and I think I might have confused an autopilot response to pictures of the bead shop with an autopilot response to the pictures of fountains that functioned somehow without modern pumping technology. “It’s just that one of my aunt’s most valuable pieces of a collection was stolen.”
Aunt Astrid heard me and complained, “The police might as well have done the stealing if they don’t give it back. Months, he said! Months!”
“Luckily,” Bea added, “everyone who’s deluded enough to think it’s real is behind bars.”
Min said, “Right!” And it really sounded as if he meant it. “For today, for right now, everyone’s safe. All’s well in wonderful Wonder Falls.”
Mr. Park said, “Show them the video of the Bali beach! The kites that were shaped like boats and look as though they’re floating in the blue sky!”
So the records of Min’s travels continued. Sunlight through the canopy of some African jungle. A performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in some park in Australia, invaded by a swarm of giant bull ants. Beautiful stray cats in the Coliseum in Rome. A few more.
When it was done, I applauded. “It’s great you got to see the whole world! Thanks so much for sharing it with us.”
“Not that great,” Min said. “You still take yourself with you, you know.”
Bea said, “But you’ve changed! I mean…”
Mr. Park finished Bea’s sentence. “You’ve grown. My boy’s a man.”
Mrs. Park disagreed. “He’ll always be my baby.”
I’d meant what I said about the rest of the world being great to see, especially through Min’s perspective. His whole slideshow only got me to appreciate my own hometown that much more, though.
On the walk back to Aunt Astrid’s place, Bea had a suggestion. “We should go camping,”
We took turns carrying Marshmallow, as the old cat demanded. Peanut Butter didn’t mind walking as long as he was with us. Treacle didn’t mind wandering off and disappearing entirely.
But Treacle with the scar had been more loyal to me than any of the pudgy strays in Rome with their unscratched coats would have been. We didn’t have playgrounds in Wonder Falls, but the kids could play safely in the meadows. Maybe one day I’d visit the mysterious jungles of darkest Africa, or surf the magnificent and vivid tropical blue waters of Balinese beaches, but I was in no hurry. There was enough mystery and magnificence in the waterfalls of my own little hometown.
“We haven’t gone camping in years,” Aunt Astrid said as we arrived at her place. She opened the door and went inside. “That would be lovely.”
Bea followed her, setting Marshmallow down on the sofa. Marshmallow scratched her ear with a hind paw and shook her head. “So, when should we do it?”
I shut the door behind us and answered, “When this is all over.”
Aunt Astrid nodded.
Bea looked from her mother to me, dismayed. “This isn’t over? How can it not be over? Do you mean when we get our book back and can make sure that it’s safe?”
“Yes. But also, I saw who attacked me,” Aunt Astrid said. “It wasn’t Reuben.”
“Reuben Connors and that one guy aren’t innocent in this whole thing,” I said, as everything began to come together in my mind. “But there’s one loose end that we have to tie up, and we can’t involve the police.” I paused. “Well, maybe Jake. I think he knows, but I think he doesn’t want to know.”
Aunt Astrid said, “I’ll put the kettle on, and Cath can tell us all about what she’s figured out.”
Uninvited Guests
The three of us met Jake that evening at the Night Owl, where he sat across from the LaChance twins.
Bea approached them first. “Mind if I get my husband back?”
“We’re through here. Don’t worry,” Jake said to Nadia.
Nadia, uncharacteristically, appeared to be nearly in tears. Jake continued to comfort her. “Reuben Connors is not going to bother anybody in this town anymore.”
“But if you don’t have a solid case, he could walk!”
“Deal with that when it happens,” I said to Nadia. “For now, have you got a place to stay?”
Naomi answered for her. “She’s staying at my loft. I just had to drag an extra mattress out for the top bunk. I only got a bunk bed because I liked four posters with the curtain that goes all around it, but it’s turned out to be useful.”
Nadia said, “I would have taken the sofa.”
“Oh, please, as if that would have helped!” At my confused expression, Naomi elaborated: “Ruby Connors thinks she’s too good for either.”
“That’s not true,” Nadia objected. “Ruby just had to attend to another one of Darla’s attention-sucking vortex phases. I’m sure I’ve got friends who irritate her, too.”
Nadia caught my eye for a moment and then looked away.
Bea asked Nadia, “Are you and Ruby breaking up?”
“No!” Nadia almost shouted. “Not over something like this. Especially not after yesterday!”
“We’ll see,” Naomi said, with a singsong voice.
* * *
Bea took the front passenger seat of the car as Jake drove. Aunt Astrid and I sat in the back with the Greenstone spellbook between us. Jake had taken it from the evidence room.
Bea said, “You put a lot on the line for me and my family, Jake—”
“Don’t mention it!” Jake said, tersely, “Really, please, I love you but—don’t. Don’t mention anything about this.”
I expected Bea to look relieved, but she went quiet in a way that told me her feelings were quite hurt. There wasn’t any way that I could tell Jake off, though. It was their marriage, and they’d have to figure it out themselves.
The police car pulled up to Darla Castellan’s mansion, where Ruby Connors was supposed to be. We hid behind the bushes.
Jake rang the doorbell. From where I hid, Bea beside me, and Astrid with the Greenstone spellbook on Bea’s other side, I heard the door swing open and Darla ask what Jake wanted. There was a tremor to her usually steady, reedy voice.
Jake said, “Good evening. I was told Ruby Connors would be here. I just have some quick follow-up questions about yesterday’s fire. They’re sort of urgent.”
Darla sighed and laughed. “Ruby! Detective Williams wants to talk to you!” She asked Jake, “Do you want to come in?”
“No,” Jake said, “Out here would be fine. I’m in a bit of a rush to get back to the station. I hope you don’t mind. My interrogation with Nadia LaChance went on for longer than scheduled. She was upset.”
“Look,” Darla replied, “I might not have had my home invaded and burned down, but considering that nobody close to her just died, I think Nadia could be more respectful of people’s time. Especially model members of the community such as yourself.”
“It’s no trouble.”
Darla continued, “I mean model members of the community. You’re quite the hunk, if I can say so. Like, you could be a model.”
“You’ve said so before, ma’am, at which time I reminded you that I’m a married hunk.”
I spared a glance at Bea, who was staring daggers at Darla.
Darla crooned, “Are you sure you don’t want to come inside?”
At last, Ruby came to the door and followed Jake out to the courtyard. They passed us by without Ruby noticing.
“Now,” I said, and the three of us started moving.
Darla had lingered too long in the doorway. Her face turned to outrage when she saw us approach, but Astrid opened the book. “You know what this can do? Just nod.”
Darla nodded.
Bea said, “Unlike you or the Order, we actually know how to use it, so ge
t back inside quietly.”
“And we’ll work something out,” I added.
Aunt Astrid’s expression softened. “I don’t want revenge for attacking me, Darla. None of us want that. We just want some peace of mind.”
With a resentful glance at our ruse—Jake spinning his questions at Ruby in the courtyard, neither of them thinking to look over at us—Darla let us in.
A Collection of Little Bubbles
The entire inside of her house smelled like artificial jasmine.
“First,” I said, “What did we do wrong? How did we let on that we were witches?”
Darla shrugged. “Weird things always happened around you. Ever since we were kids. When I got wise to the fact that you had something real but impossible going on, I thought that I was just lucky in school that you didn’t have the spells to—I don’t know—make me vomit sewing needles that I didn’t remember eating. Then I thought, no, if they can do that, then they’re the lucky ones!”
Bea’s expression was a mix of contempt and horror. “You have a morbid imagination, Darla Castellan!”
“Witches do that,” Darla insisted. Mocking Bea’s tone, she said, “You’re not the only one who reads, Beatrix Greenstone!”
“It’s just Bea. And I’m a Williams, now, by the way, so watch how you talk to my husband!”
“Oh,” Darla said. “You can watch how I talk to your husband, if you don’t watch yourself—nerd!”
I got between them. “All right! You wanted magic powers. You’ve got failed businesses, courtesy of Winnifred Hansen. A failing marriage. You thought that a magic spell would solve all your problems in life, and you knew that we had magic.”
Darla nodded. “I also knew that you wouldn’t tell me. Selfish!”
Aunt Astrid looked hurt. “I gave you a tarot reading about your love life. I told you what you needed to compromise with—”
Darla scoffed. “Oh, please! That so-called marriage was dead in the water. Besides, if you have magic and you still continue to pretend that you’ve got life so hard—then you’re obviously wasting it.”
I said, “You’ve got wiles. Ted fell for them.” It wasn’t a question. “Fatally.” That must have been what Reuben meant by a treacherous woman.
“It was the only way I could get him to tell me anything. Ted knew real magic when he saw it,” Darla answered as she sauntered over to an armchair. “But he was afraid of it because of his mother. Years ago, before we got together, Ted found the trapdoor. He thought he would remind your Aunt Astrid of it to make a wine cellar—”
“I remember that,” Astrid said. “It broke my heart to stop a Frenchman from caring for his favorite wines…”
Darla waved a hand dismissively. “He didn’t mind! He thought that he’d sneak some racks and bottles in anyway. But he found the book hidden in the fuse box, and he got all scared! That coward! It wasn’t even real. But he wouldn’t even tell me where your Aunt Astrid’s cellar was. The Brew-Ha-Ha was the last place I’d think of looking. I thought it was in some secret cabin out in the woods.” She paused. “Don’t think I only used him. I liked the guy, all right? I’d surprise him on the way to work in the early morning. We could have carried on for a long while, I can tell you. I sometimes even forgot to pick his brain about you!”
Bea shook her head. “A torrid, star-crossed romance, I’m sure it was. What a tragedy it had to end!”
“And what,” I asked Darla, “reminded you to pick his brain about us?”
Darla answered, “Four days ago, I met Ted as usual, early in the morning, before he started prepping the dough or whatever. That morning was different because I heard something in the restaurant area, where nobody was supposed to be.”
The legacy journal that belonged to Blake’s father had a locator spell in it. The Order must have used something similar and sent someone to the café in search of the spellbook.
“Which member of the Order found the book?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Darla said. “He had a stocking over his head when he came out of the cellar. Ted grappled with him and told me to run. The thief had dropped the book first. I picked it up and then I ran.”
“Ted was fighting for his life! But you cared more about what you could get—the book!” Bea accused.
Darla rolled her eyes. “He was still alive when I saw myself out. And Ted had told me to run.”
I imagined the necklace worn by a member of the Order getting ripped from his neck in the struggle. Ted could have pulled off the stocking, too, revealing … Reuben? Dexter? Felix? It didn’t matter now.
“It was supposed to be a simple theft,” I said, “but they’d run into a witness instead. They couldn’t leave Ted alive, and without the book, they couldn’t wipe his memory. So they killed him and set the place on fire to destroy the evidence. But the cellar kept the footprints and kept a whiff of your perfume.”
“I feared for my life, in every sense of the word!” Darla exclaimed. “My love life, my business, my reputation in this town were all in jeopardy—and now there was this group of strangers prepared to murder! I needed magic, but all I had was the fake book!”
Astrid nodded. “You’d seen what these people were capable of and thought that you needed to step up your game. You came into my home, armed with a baton, and demanded the real book. I wouldn’t give it to you.”
Darla said, vehemently, “I had to take it, so I did!”
“But,” Astrid said, “you didn’t know what to do with it. You only knew that it was powerful.”
“And,” I added, “you might have suspected that these strangers you were up against had magic of their own.”
“So you foisted it off on your best friend,” Bea said, “probably your only friend—Ruby Connors.”
“It must be hard,” I said, “to outgrow unhealthy friendships and break away when she didn’t have a supportive family. Ruby would let you use her because she thinks that’s what loyalty means. How much of all this did Ruby know about?”
“Nothing,” Darla replied. “I come and go. Sometimes I leave things. I’d been staying overnight at Ruby’s place a lot anyway since Darren served the divorce papers. Nadia hates it, but that book would be ‘just another one of Darla’s things.’ I read a little, and I hid it under the floorboards of the guest bedroom. I didn’t dare use the book yet, but I figured that if I kept it hidden and safe, it could be a point of negotiation if they came after me.”
“But,” I added, “you wouldn’t be safe if you tried to keep the book safe with you.”
“Obviously!” Darla scoffed. “But I’m not a bad person, especially not to my friends. I knew Ruby would be better off joining me on a shopping trip. Besides, I figured that Naomi would give them enough trouble if they tried anything, but she folded too quickly, and they got the book back anyway.”
“Nadia,” I corrected.
Darla drawled, “Yeah, yeah. They look the same.”
“They look nothing alike!”
“They’re twins!”
Bea was shaking her head disapprovingly. “I wish that I could see you sorrier about Ted,” she told Darla, “But you’re not the one who knocked him out and set him on fire. Afterwards, though, you could have killed my mother! You could have gotten our friends killed! You’re no better than the agents of the Order.”
“Oh yeah?” Darla said, “They’re in prison. I’m not. And you’re not going to put me in prison, are you?”
Bea and I exchanged looks.
Astrid nodded. “We didn’t bring Detective Williams here to arrest you, no. That would be too conspicuous.”
Darla gave a laugh. “I knew it!”
Bea seethed with rage. “Is that seriously how you defend your unconscionable behavior? ‘I didn’t get caught so it must not have been wrong’?”
“We all do what we have to.” Darla leaned back. “And you have to deal with me.”
I nodded. “You’re absolutely right. We need the fake book back. We’re going into hiding again,
so we’ve got to swap the real one with something that can safely sit in the evidence room of the Wonder Falls police department.”
“And,” Aunt Astrid added, “show up on trial as Exhibit A, or so-and-so alphabet letter.”
I forced my voice to sound cajoling, even flattering. “It would be such a huge favor to us, Darla. You wouldn’t believe—”
“How about this.” Darla wasn’t amused. “I’ll give you the fake book. You give me the real one, which I don’t know how to use, and you teach me magic. But I’ll keep the book with me.”
“Done,” I answered.
Bea backed away in horror. “That’s not possible! Magic comes from the soul, and you, Darla, don’t have one!”
At that, Darla stood up. “Just try me! Yeah, come at me, copperhead.”
Bea peered at her. “Have your insults matured at all since grade school?”
Aunt Astrid cleared her throat, drawing attention to herself. “The other book, if you please?”
As Darla stood and went over to the coffee table, Astrid handed me the real book—which I held open—and Bea turned to the right page.
Darla returned with the fake spellbook, which Aunt Astrid received gently with a smile.
“All right,” I said, “Now we teach you magic.”
This was the only spell in the book that didn’t call for something as cruel, criminal, and unsanitary as a human sacrifice—although the three of us who did the spell would suffer magic burnout for weeks. It was a good thing that we wouldn’t need our magic for a long time to come.
As the one of us with the magic closest to dealing with magic of the mind, I tuned into the otherworld and began to pick out Darla’s memories. With the help of Aunt Astrid and Bea, I had the energy to make new ones for Darla. We made Darla forget that she’d ever believed in magic at all, let alone in our magic. She never became interested in Ted. She had nothing to do with the attack on Ruby’s place.
Darla Castellan would get away with everything she had done, because we would take it away from her. Part of me wished that she could have been taken to task, instead, for Ted’s sake—but beyond her mind, I could see her heart, which was entirely the wrong shape for accountability. She’d always been a bully.
