Ghost Mysteries & Sassy Witches (Cozy Mystery Multi-Novel Anthology)

by Неизвестный

  Without the birds to warn them of approaching owls, the goats were defenseless. The owls picked them off easily, feasting on delicious goats until they grew heavy and clumsy in flight.

  As she'd read the story, Opal was a little surprised at the amount of violence and bloodshed, considering it appeared to be a children's book, with illustrations. The image of the owls eating the goat entrails had been particularly troubling.

  The goats' numbers dwindled to just a few, who hid deep in caves at night and took turns keeping watch by day while the others fretfully grazed. The goats continued to call upon their maker, their maker who had once Blessed them, asking for help.

  One summer solstice, the maker's attention finally turned to the goats and the little island that floated around the world. A cloudless lightning storm raged all night, shattering trees to toothpicks and moving the paths of rivers.

  The next day, the female goats grew round in the middle, and the next night, they gave birth to nine babies. The babies were not goats, though. They were humans. As the humans grew up, the goats discovered they could talk, and the goats spoke to the human babies, and told them what they knew of the world, which was far more than you'd expect goats to know.

  Those nine humans grew up to become the First People, or the Goat People, depending on who you asked.

  When those first humans gave birth, the goats gathered around, curious to see what the offspring would be. To the goats' disappointment, the offspring were just plain old humans, as were their children's children. In their disappointment, the goats stopped talking to the humans.

  The First People set down the Three Laws:

  Do not hurt other people.

  Do not take what is not given.

  Do not eat the goats.

  The First People forged a treaty with the giant owls. This took some convincing, including shooting several owls with arrows and roasting them. Eventually, the owls agreed to obey The Third Law, and they stopped eating the goats.

  Many people on the island followed The Three Laws, though not everyone, and not all of the time, for despite the highest of intentions, it was still human nature to hurt others, take what is not given, and eat the goats.

  * * *

  The next morning, Opal awoke to what smelled like breakfast. She took a moment to be thankful that she was not in jail, and not washed up on a rocky shore, clutching a magic suitcase. The sun shone in through the circular window, and she had a very good feeling about the day. Even her hair looked fantastic, still straight and silky, even after being washed.

  She ran downstairs, planning to immediately apologize for having disappeared the evening before.

  A man stood in the kitchen—a man she'd never seen before. He turned to her and froze in place, holding a spatula in one hand.

  “Hello, I'm Opal,” she said cheerily. “I'm Aunt Waleah's niece. Her great niece, technically.”

  The man put down the spatula and walked past her, then straight down the hallway without a word. A moment later, the front door slammed.

  Waleah, who was sipping from a mug at the little table in a breakfast nook off the kitchen, said, “That's my husband. He doesn't socialize very well. Would you mind flipping the pancakes before they burn?”

  Opal hurried over to the stove and flipped the pancakes, which appeared to be of the blueberry variety.

  “Did I do something wrong?” she asked her aunt. “I feel like such a doorknob. I didn't even ask if you were married. I guess I just made assumptions. Does anyone else live here besides you and him?”

  “Just us. He'll come around,” Waleah said, looking amused. “Change is harder for us old folks, so you'll have to be patient. His name is Mitchell, by the way.”

  “So, if you're married, you don't have the same last name as my grandfather, do you?”

  “That's right. I took Mitchell's name, so I'm a Weirma now.”

  “Waleah Weirma.”

  “This wasn't a Weirma house, though, not originally. I grew up in this house.”

  Opal pulled some plates from the cupboard and brought them to the table. “And my grandfather, Warren, his room was the one I'm in now, right?”

  Waleah raised her eyebrows. “You're figuring things out.”

  Opal smiled and served up the pancakes, surprising herself at how comfortable she felt in her new home, aside from the awkwardness with Mitchell.

  Waleah said, “Try them first without the syrup, then with.” She smiled as she handed Opal a jug of brown liquid.

  Opal did as she was told, eager to please.

  Waleah pushed over a jar of something that looked like peanut butter. “This is my favorite.”

  “Peanut butter?”

  “Even better. It's from the redfruit. Well, from the nuts inside the pits.”

  Opal tasted the nut butter and said it was good, which was true. She couldn't shake the feeling she was being tested, evaluated, so she took care to be positive and eager.

  Waleah frowned. “You don't have to say everything's good. Not everything is good.”

  “Okay,” Opal said, and she kept her gaze down on her food.

  Waleah was hard to read—sometimes loving and sometimes distant, or often both, simultaneously.

  They ate their pancakes together and Opal listened as Waleah talked about the weather forecast for the day, and then the floor wax they had to get for the floor, as well as detailed instructions about how to apply the floor wax.

  Opal read between the lines that she was expected to do chores as part of earning her keep there, beginning with waxing the floor. At least the pancakes were good, and she ate three of them.

  As Opal cleared away the plates, trying to make herself useful, she said, “Is there a home improvement store in town? Or do I get the wax at a general store?”

  “No! Good gravy, not store-bought wax. May as well set fire to the floors. No, you'll have to hike up and get the wax straight from the bluebees.”

  “I'm sorry, did you say bluebees? Like bees, with blue in front?”

  “Yes. You know, bluebees. They make honey and they build blue honey-castles out of wax.”

  “Won't they sting me? Don't you have to blow smoke over them and wear a special bee suit?”

  “Bluebees don't sting anyone, silly.”

  “Oh. We have something similar on the mainland, but they do sting. Or at least some of them do, I think.”

  “Their wax is magnificent,” Waleah said. “It has magical properties for strengthening wood. I'd buy some in town, but they water it down to the point of uselessness.”

  “Wait, so I have to hike up somewhere and find them? Oh, no. Are the bluebees mega huge, like the big, scary owls?”

  Waleah frowned and pointed to the platter in front of her, and the single leftover pancake—the pancake with the sweet, round, blue things Opal had assumed, up until now, were blueberries. Waleah said, “You just ate about fifty of them, so you're as expert as anyone.”

  Opal was already at the sink, and she hunched over it, fighting a gag reflex. They'd looked exactly like blueberries! They'd been sweet, and juicy.

  She grimaced and held her stomach with her hands. Throwing up in her aunt's sink would be poor form, plus she needed the carbohydrate calories if she was to be out hiking and hunting for… honey-castles?

  * * *

  After getting a few directions, as well as a backpack with some bottled water and sandwiches for the trip, Opal set off in search of the elusive bluebees and their honey-castle homes.

  On her new bicycle, the first few pedals were tough, because her muscles were sore from the previous day, but once she was out on the cobblestone road for a mile or so, her legs loosened up. Although the bluebee territory was in the opposite direction, she rode first into town and retraced her steps from the night she arrived.

  She passed by the vendor whose breakfast pastries she'd eaten the previous day, and even though her stomach was well-filled by the bluebee pancakes, her mouth watered at the sweet smell. She looked ar
ound for the witches, but they weren't in the clothing shop, or anywhere else she checked.

  A glasses-wearing, middle-aged man in bright red jeans walked by, doing a bad job of inconspicuously spying on Opal. She gave him a friendly wave, which sent him scurrying away. As she scanned the town square, she saw a number of people, men and women, wearing similar red jeans. She normally preferred blue, but the red jeans were growing on her.

  The next familiar face she encountered, besides the pastry vendor, was Edwin, the handsome man whose fiancee had been killed. He wore dark gray clothes and looked like he hadn't slept or shaved in days. He was having trouble using his circular card to purchase a newspaper from the paper box.

  Opal stopped her bike, meaning to say something. She had the strangest compulsion to apologize to him, even though she'd had nothing to do with the woman's death. He stood up with the newspaper in hand, and looked straight at her. They both stood, silently staring at each other, for several seconds. Opal's mouth opened and closed, wordlessly, then the young man turned around without a word and walked away.

  First Mitchell, now Edwin. She really had a way with men!

  Her cheeks burning with shame, Opal pedaled away, saying under her breath, “I'm sorry for your loss. Geez. Is that so hard to say? I'm sorry for your loss. Uh-huh, duh, I'm Opal, I'm from the mainland, and I'm a big stupidhead.”

  She stopped admonishing herself only when she arrived at her destination, the log cabin where Peter lived.

  She parked her bike using the kickstand and knocked on the door. The red-haired woman, Patty, opened the door. “You're still here,” she said, looking surprised.

  “You thought I'd be deported already?”

  “Or something,” she said, tucking a wild strand of wavy hair behind her ear. “Disappeared, even.”

  “No… am I in trouble? I'm just a kid, you know. I'm only fifteen.” She folded her hands together and tried to look meek. “Is Peter here?”

  Patty, who seemed a lot less receptive to Opal now that she was plain old Opal and not the woman's nephew's fiancee, hollered over her shoulder, “PETER!”

  As she waited for Peter, Opal marveled at how different things were here on the island than at home, where she would have sent a friend a dozen text messages and met the friend somewhere, rather than show up, unannounced, at a person's door. Being at Peter's door was exciting, and old-fashioned, and spontaneous.

  Patty fussed with her hair, smoothing down wavy segments. Opal had seen a number of women around the town, and they wore a variety of different clothing styles, but they all had perfectly straight hair. Opal wondered if Patty chose to not see the pixies for her hairstyling because being peed on by them was unsettling, or because she couldn't afford the privilege. Their home was small, compared to Opal's new home, but everything was so unusual on the island, so she couldn't tell what social strata people were in.

  Social strata, or class, didn't matter much to Opal, except as a point of interest. Her grandfather, before he'd retired, had worked his whole life as a mechanic, and then taught mechanics at a school. Some of his friends, like Arthur, were professors at the university. Even Flora taught some writing classes. They were all teachers, though Opal's grandfather liked to bring up his blue-collar roots as often as possible. He always chose the cheapest beer or wine, simply to make the point that he wasn't snooty. His friends had teased him for being a reverse-snob, whatever that was.

  Opal kicked at the gravel beneath her feet and wondered what Katy was doing. Katy's family was wealthy—old money—and they had a proper house and a pool, too, with a diving board and everything. The pool wasn't as big as the one in Opal's apartment building, but it was private, and people didn't let their dogs and babies swim and go to the bathroom in it.

  Peter came to the door and peered shyly around his mother, neither coming out of the house nor inviting Opal in.

  Opal said, “Wanna help me get bluebee wax?”

  “No.”

  “Fine,” she said, turning to grab her bike. So much for spontaneity. “I guess I'll just fall off the side of a cliff or whatever, since I don't know what I'm doing.”

  He ran out after her. “Wait! Opal, I don't want to go, but I will go. Big difference.”

  She turned and gave him a big smile. She was so relieved to have some help, she could have hugged him, if his mother hadn't been standing right there, and if he didn't look like the sudden physical contact would make him scream.

  “Take your hunting knife,” Patty said to her son as he retrieved a worn-looking bicycle from a shed alongside the log house.

  “Already got it,” he said, patting the holder on his belt.

  Opal said, “Hunting knife? We're not hunting the bluebees, not literally.”

  “Gotta be safe,” he said.

  “Be very careful!” Patty called out after them.

  * * *

  Peter's old bike squeaked whenever he veered left, but not when he veered right. Opal's bike, which looked even more brand new next to Peter's, buzzed along merrily, and her legs felt stronger than the previous day.

  Her breathing was also stronger, and her allergies seemed diminished, with no more of the persistent sniffle she'd usually have all summer, while the trees and grasses were blossoming. She took a deep breath in and out. Yes, she was breathing much easier on the island. The place was magical in so many ways.

  She asked Peter, “Do people get colds here on the island?”

  “Yes,” he said. “And other illnesses as well, though most people who used to live on the mainland say we don't get as many colds here, and hardly any flu.”

  “Awesome!” Opal said.

  They rode out past the town perimeter, through terrain that was still unusual but becoming more familiar, and took a fork in the road that led away from Opal's new house. The cobblestones under their tires were less smooth here, with some areas looking like a jigsaw puzzle put together by a small child who smashes the wrong pieces to fit.

  “Thank you for the fairy tale book,” Opal said to Peter.

  “You're welcome. It's not a fairy tale, though.”

  She pedaled faster to catch up and ride alongside him rather than behind. “Dude, you're joking, right? Do people around here actually believe they're descended from goats? Is it, like, the religion around here?”

  “Not everyone is descended from goats.”

  “Ah, phew! Not everyone. That's so much more reasonable.”

  He started to say something, then stopped.

  Opal said, “No offense intended.”

  “We know the story of the First People is strange too, but some people take the folklore quite seriously. Especially those who claim to talk with goats.”

  “So the goats do talk?”

  “That's debatable. People don't discuss such sensitive things, because…” He changed gears and cursed at his bicycle.

  “Because why? You have to tell me. Don't leave me hanging!”

  He chewed on his lower lip, then said, “A while ago, long before I was born, some people claimed to be the true descendents of the First People, and that the goats were telling them things.”

  “Telling them things,” Opal repeated. She got a dark feeling about where this was going.

  Peter continued, “A few of these people who heard things got voted into office and started deporting people they felt didn't belong here. They thought all the non-goat-descended were evil and responsible for every terrible thing that happened on the island, from deformed births to crop failures. Then, they got frustrated with deportation not being fast enough, so they rounded up people and…” He cleared his throat and changed gears up and then down, the bike squeaking.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “No.”

  Peter turned to look her right in the eyes. His irises were neither brown nor green, but somewhere in the middle, and he looked sad, so sad.

  “They killed two-thirds of the population,” he said.

  Opal slowed her pedaling and then stopped entirely, putting
her feet on the ground. The day was as warm as the previous one, and without the breeze of movement, her whole body felt damp. Peter stopped and rolled his bicycle back to join her.

  She said, “This place is not a perfect paradise at all, is it?”

  “Things are pretty decent, right now.”

  Opal pieced some things together. “So, if a person thinks they hear a goat talking, that's a bad thing, right?”

  “It's not good.”

  “But the goats themselves, they aren't bad?”

  “They're animals,” he said. “Animals just are. They have no moral compass, so nothing they do is good or bad. We don't eat the goats, though.”

  She nodded. “Rule number three. Don't eat the goats.”

  He started to pedal again, and Opal followed, his bike squeaking as it picked up speed, and hers happily ticking along. Peter let her know they'd be approaching the area Waleah had described as the Drylands soon enough.

  On their ride, they passed a number of people, mostly on bikes or other human-powered contraptions, but a few walking. There were more houses along the road, found at the ends of paths leading off from the main road, some with stone fences and gates, but many without. Most people waved, and Opal got in the habit of waving to them as soon as she saw them, assuming they'd happily wave back.

  “Does everyone know everyone?” she asked Peter.

  “I don't know what you mean,” he said. “Most faces are familiar, but sometimes you meet someone you've never talked to before, but it doesn't seem strange, because they usually look like someone you know and are friends with other people in your family.”

  “How many people live on the island?”

  He shrugged. “You'd have to ask my cousin. He'd know.”

  “Maybe I will,” she said.

  They biked past fields with sheep and then fields with cows. Seeing cows made Opal happy, because she loved cheese and ice cream. “Moo!” she said to the cows, and Peter joined in. The cows didn't moo in response, but stared back with mild interest.

  They stopped to rest, parked the bikes, and walked over to the fence to wave at the cows. An old man on a low-rider bike rolled by and gave Peter a knowing look.