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

by Неизвестный

  After patting all around her to make sure she was really on grass, she opened her eyes. The little bit of chalk that remained crumbled to dust between her fingers.

  Opal looked around the meadow, fully expecting to see a goat, as she had on her previous visit to the top of the cliff.

  She was all alone.

  * * *

  Being reunited with her suitcase was the highlight of Opal's evening, second to escaping the land squid, of course.

  The damp contents didn't smell great, but they were hers. She hugged her favorite pair of stretchy jeans, then put them on instead of her shorts. The fabric felt good on her legs, comforting over all the scratches, scrapes, and bruises on her shins from tramping through forests.

  Beyond the meadow, the forest loomed, dark and ominous and full of eyes. She thought of wandering through and tracing over the steps of Svetlana. She decided to wait until daylight before looking for a trail.

  Opal pulled all of her clothes from the suitcase and arranged them as a makeshift mattress, pillow, and blanket.

  * * *

  Hers was a fitful sleep, wherein she woke every half hour to slap away at strangling vines and tentacles that were only in her dreams.

  If a person or creature had been watching, say, from several feet away in that same grassy meadow, they would have underestimated the power of this small, fifteen-year-old girl. The way she whimpered in her sleep and swatted at imagined foes was not fearsome at all, but she had a power, a determination. She was not to be taken lightly.

  Chapter Seventeen

  If the rising sun hadn't woken Opal completely, the flock of birds pelting her with fruit certainly did.

  “Thanks!” she yelled, waving to the birds with one hand while she gathered the fruit with the other. She'd learned from the food vendor in Ystad that these were simply called redfruit, and she was pleased to find these ones were ripe and delicious. They were the first food she'd had since soggy sandwiches in the cave a day earlier, which only made them better. Rather than tossing aside the first fruit's pit, she found two rocks and banged on the pit to bust it open. Inside was a nut, and if memory served her, the nut was the base of the brown butter she'd eaten at breakfast the day before. In any case, the nut tasted too good to be poison, almond-like, so she ate all of the fruits and the nuts as well.

  In the bright light of day, she looked once more over her things from home. She indulged in a medium-sized sulk, missing everyone and everything from her old life. Her grandfather might be in the hospital, or going about his regular business, and she missed him too much to think about him for long. Missing him was a pain that split down her chest, and hurt when she breathed.

  She forced herself to think of Katy, who had almost certainly made Mark her boyfriend by now. Katy hadn't been sure about her feelings toward Mark until Opal started spending time with the boy. Opal would have preferred things to stay exactly as they were, with all three of them friends, but things had changed.

  Opal gazed out over the sparking sea beyond the edge of the cliff and thought of how things would have been different if Katy had been there in her place. Assuming she'd gotten up the cliff on the first day, Katy wouldn't have let pixies pull her hair, and she would have taken Aunt Waleah's money card and set about trying to book a boat back to the mainland. She certainly wouldn't have gone chasing after the elusive bluebees with no map and just a few vague directions.

  Katy could have Mark. Opal had an entire island, and Peter.

  Thinking of Peter pulled her out of the sulk. The poor boy was lost, probably inside the witches' castle, and losing his vision, or worse. If he'd stumbled into the same room she had, he could have gotten zapped out to the ocean as well, and… she couldn't think about it.

  She opened the old suitcase and folded up her clothes before laying them back in. The sun wasn't high in the sky yet, but the air was already warm, so she changed into a gauzy shirt Katy had given her. The shirt was technically a dress, but really short, so she pulled on the leggings she always wore with it. Her runners looked as good as new, after their wash-off in the ocean, and they were comfortable, too, so she put them back on.

  All packed up, she gripped the handle of her suitcase tightly and set off looking for a goat trail leading into the forest. The meadow looked smaller than the one she'd arrived at before, and for all she knew, there were hundreds of these meadows, all around the island. Getting a map to carry around, or at least to study, was at the top of her list of things to do once she was back home.

  Home.

  The stone-covered mansion that she shared with Mitchell and Waleah Weirma was her home. She'd only spent one night there, yet she wanted it to be home, even though she didn't belong.

  Along the edge of the forest, she found one goat trail, grown over with vegetation, but with luck the trail would lead to the train station.

  With a heavy heart and a muscle ache all the way down to her bones, Opal pushed through the bushes, on what she hoped was a path.

  She marched through the woods, where she was greeted by dragonflies who danced around.

  Her arm got tired quickly, so she transferred the suitcase. She was glad to have it back, but something about the contents bothered her.

  She'd found her clothes and waterlogged toiletries, but something was missing.

  Her dolls.

  Absent were the little dolls from her dollhouse. There had been the one that looked like her, and the one in the image of her grandfather. Each was no more than two inches tall, but they were hers, and she questioned why someone would take them from her suitcase.

  The phrase voodoo dolls jumped into her head, and made her shiver. She told herself she was being silly. They might have fallen out when she'd wrung out the clothes her first day. Or, she thought with a laugh, while she'd been sleeping, they could have just walked away. She shivered again, even though the air was quite warm.

  * * *

  The trail did lead to the train tracks, and a wood platform, much to Opal's relief.

  She got on the driverless trolley car, feeling lonely without the company of the goats. She held on tight as the vehicle approached the side of the cliff. This time, she kept her eyes open and saw the tunnel entrance was not magic at all, but a decidedly un-magical trick of the eyes, a trompe l'oeil. Across the opening hung strips of something, a cloth or canvas, painted to look like the side of the cliff. The trolley car plowed through them like a hippy through a beaded curtain. They were inside the dark tunnel, then out the other side in less time than it took Opal to start feeling claustrophobic.

  She got off at the wooden platform near the town square. The sweet smells of the pastry vendor wafted through the air, along with the comforting noises of regular folks going about their day. She guessed by the sun it was about noon. She could have gone home to her new family and house, and she did consider it, but, instead, she went to Peter's house, to inform his mother that she had lost him. In the span of a day, she had lost Patty's son.

  * * *

  Patty cried, mopping her face with a dish towel, which only made Opal cry as well, and feel worse.

  “He's with the witches, though,” Opal said. “Zara and Delilah. I'm sure he's fine. Honestly, I half-expected to find him here,” she said, which wasn't exactly a lie, since she had been hoping it would be true.

  “Why did you leave him?” Patty leaned against the doorway, her posture conveying suspicion. She hadn't invited Opal in, or even offered so much as a glass of water.

  “I didn't mean to, but I walked into a room and something blasted me, and then I teleported or something into the ocean.”

  Patty dried her cheeks and frowned. “Don't lie.”

  “I'm not lying. I was in the castle one minute, then poof, out in the ocean, where I nearly drowned.” Opal sniffed at the air wafting out from behind Patty. Something was cooking back there, in the kitchen, and the food smelled good.

  Patty shook her head. “People can't teleport. Not on the island.”

  “I
think I know what happened to me, since I was there and all.”

  “What's that red mark on your head? You look ghastly. Did you get hit on the head? Someone could have knocked you out and dumped you in the ocean.”

  “I guess so.”

  Patty crossed her arms. “Check your head.”

  “This mark on my forehead was from bumping a wall. This is ridiculous,” she said, but still she checked her scalp for bumps. “No bumps, but does it matter? Shouldn't we be going to the castle now, to get Peter?”

  Patty stepped all the way out of her log house and closed the door, shutting the food smells away behind her. “Not until we report everything to the sheriff,” she said.

  “Oh, great,” Opal said. “Just who I wanted to see next.”

  “You should have thought about that before you lost my son.”

  “I didn't lose him! He wandered off.”

  Patty shook her head, started to say something, but stopped. She marched off in the direction of the town square.

  Opal followed along behind, muttering under her breath that at least she'd get bread and water once she was locked up in a jail cell.

  * * *

  The sheriff's name was Max.

  Opal studied the burly woman, with her short brown hair and sensible attire. She appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties, but with much older, wiser eyes.

  “Short for Maxine?” Opal asked.

  “No, short for Maximum Pleasure. What do you think? Of course it's short for Maxine.” She pounded a cigarette pack against her hand—Marlboro—and shook out one cigarette, which she offered to Patty.

  Patty said, “Are you sure? That's awfully generous of you.”

  “We'll go outside.” Max led the way out of the building, saying, “They aren't mine. Someone left them in my office, and I don't usually smoke, but today's a tough day.”

  Once outside, Patty accepted, and the two of them quietly smoked their cigarettes. They sat in a little courtyard outside, next to the jail, or the sheriff's office, or whatever the plain building with the cell inside was called.

  Opal guessed the cigarettes were imported from the mainland, and not cheap, which was probably for the best, for the health of the island residents. She coughed from the second-hand smoke. Her grandfather wouldn't want her sitting this close to smokers, even outside.

  Opal remembered that the big man on the boat, Jeremiah, had smoked the same brand, and wondered if there was a connection.

  After the two women were done smoking, Patty did seem less worried about her son.

  Max got out a small writing pad and tiny pencil, and took down the details of the story, as Patty told it, which was her interpretation of what Opal had told her.

  Opal crossed her arms and then finally sat on her hands to keep from interrupting. Patty was telling the story secondhand, and she kept getting details wrong.

  Finally, Opal said, “It was just one snake bite,” and the two women glowered at her, as though she'd picked up the snake herself and stuck its fangs on Peter's leg. Opal shut up again and let them continue. Patty left out all the good parts, such as when Opal had sharpened sticks to defend themselves, and found the drying vents to dry out the clothes. Patty made it sound like Peter was a brave hero and Opal had been flitting along poking at things and getting herself into trouble.

  When the tale was told, Max asked to see Opal privately, back inside the office.

  “Am I being arrested? Because I don't know if my aunt will come bail me out. Just saying! You lock me up, you might have to keep me.” The two women stared vacantly at Opal, as though she'd switched to speaking in French. “I have rights,” Opal said. “Probably. Do I have rights? Rights? No? How about a sandwich. Can I get a sandwich?”

  “Sure,” Max said, standing.

  The two women shook hands and Patty left.

  “Is she going to the castle?” Opal asked Max. “I should go. I need to see Peter.”

  Max shook her head. “You do not simply go to the West Shore castle. I'll speak to my assistant and send word about young Peter. Come on, follow me.”

  Opal considered her limited options as well as the visible sidearm on the woman's hip. She followed Sheriff Max into the building again.

  Inside, she saw that the jail cell she'd spent the night in held another person, an unshaven man with black and gray hair. He must have been sleeping when she'd come in earlier. Opal nodded at him, as one former prisoner to another.

  He blurted out, “Ah seen it! Ah seen the daemon and it's comin' for tha young. Ah seen it! I wasn't drinkin' that night, ah only had a couple or five, maybe ten.”

  Max hollered back at the man, “Sleep it off!”

  Opal ran up to the bars and said, “Was the thing all shadowy? Like a person, but made of shadow, where you can't see the face?”

  The man's eyes opened wider and wider, showing the whites all around the irises. His face so red it was nearly purple, he said, “No. Nothing like that. Not like a person at all, but it did have a horrible mess of a face, like a chainsaw, and I saw it.” He jumped up and shook the bars between them. “I SAW ITS DAEMON FACE! AND NOW THE YOUNG ARE DEAD!”

  Max grabbed Opal by the arm and yanked her away. “Nobody's dead. Nobody new at least, not since that Russian girl. Never mind him, he was drunker than a pixie last night.”

  “Uh, okay,” Opal said, taking a seat next to the sheriff's desk.

  Max pulled open a drawer and tossed something in front of Opal. “Recognize these?”

  Opal scooped up the tiny dolls, the one of her and the one of her grandfather. “These are mine! Where did you find them?”

  Max leaned forward, placed her elbows on the desk, and tented her hands. “On the dead girl. Any idea how they got there?”

  Opal dropped the dolls as though they were on fire. “I don't know. They were in my suitcase, which I only just got back from the shore. I guess the woman must have found my suitcase when she got to the island, and taken them.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Why does anyone do anything? I don't know. Why did she come to this island?”

  “For a better life and to marry a good man. Now, tell me why you killed her.”

  “I didn't kill her! I never even saw her. We've already been through this. Why would I kill her?”

  Max cracked her knuckles, then tented her fingers again. “Why does anyone kill anyone? Greed, revenge, jealousy, anger, and of course, sport.”

  The lump in Opal's throat made talking difficult. “I didn't kill her. I'd never hurt anyone. I'm just a kid, okay?”

  “Maybe you didn't kill anyone,” Max said. “I think you know something, though, and you're not telling me.”

  Behind Opal, the man in the jail cell rattled the bars. “She brought the deamon! I saw her callin' it up!”

  “I swear I didn't,” Opal said to Max. “But I did see that shadowy person, once in the Wetlands and once in the castle. Oh, and Peter and I heard that horrible scraping noise when we were in the cave. You guys should really do something about that, if it's a daemon.”

  The man rattled the bars again and yelled, “She conjured the daemon outta tha bowels of the world! And now it's-a-gonna eat up all tha young! Newface! Evil Newface!”

  Opal leaned toward Max over the desk. Softly, so the man in the cell wouldn't hear her, she said, “I'm not evil. Come on, this guy's probably the town drunk. You're not going to believe him, are you?”

  “Mr. Fraser is a respected member of the community,” Max said. “He teaches math and geometry at the high school.” She whispered, “He's going through kind of a tough divorce right now.”

  Opal whispered back, “I'm not really having the best week either.”

  “Fine,” Max said, sitting back in her chair. She crossed her arms.

  Opal sat back and crossed her arms as well. “Fine.”

  “I guess we'll go for a ride.”

  “I guess we will,” Opal said.

  “Until we find us our
daemon.”

  “In that case, you can just drop me off at my aunt's house.”

  Max stared at Opal, her face grim, until finally she cracked a smile. “You wish,” she said. “How'd you like to ride a unicorn?”

  “What?” Opal's dark mood started to lighten, despite having not received the sandwiches that were promised. “For real? Unicorns are real?”

  Max stood and took some leather things off the wall—bridles—and beckoned for Opal to follow her out a back door.

  The man in the cell, Mr. Fraser, yelled out, “Don't leave me! I'm scared!”

  Max barked back, “Sleep it off!”

  As they went out the door, Opal said, “But you believe us, about the daemon, right? He's not imagining things.”

  Max patted the holster on her side. “I can take down imaginary things just as easily as real things.”

  As she stepped out into the sunshine, Opal sneezed in the bright light, twice, as usual.

  * * *

  The stables were behind the building, backing onto a pasture. A chestnut-colored horse with white spots on its rump galloped up to them, hooves stamping the earth and big nostrils making happy snorts. The creature had no horn, so it wasn't a unicorn, but it was still powerful and mesmerizing to Opal, the city girl.

  Max handed Opal some carrots to feed the horse while she whistled for something else. Opal watched eagerly for a glimpse of the unicorn.

  A well-fed gray donkey came trotting out of the nearby shrubs, also snorting with happy noises.

  Max said, “Opal, meet Gumdrop, a genuine unicorn, and your handsome steed for the day.”

  Opal did a double-take. The big-eared equine did have a little horn, about the width of Opal's hand, sticking out from its forehead. Gumdrop let out a big sneeze, followed by a fart.

  “That's not how I pictured a unicorn,” Opal said.

  “You probably only read about unicorns in books.”

  Opal gingerly held out a carrot for Gumdrop. “You're sure that's a unicorn? It's not a donkey with a gland problem?”