by Tess Lake
“This is weird. Now we’re following him. I mean, what are we going to say when he comes to ask us what we’re doing?” Molly fretted.
“We’ll say, ‘we asked you first, weirdo,’” Luce said.
It was somewhat unusual to see Luce taking the lead, but perhaps she was funneling some of her frustration and anger at Sergei into something productive.
We followed the man down the street, and after he looked behind him once, he suddenly stopped taking photographs and began to quicken his pace.
“I knew he was up to something,” Luce said, speeding up.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Molly said from behind me. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea either, but seeing the man start to rush away, I suddenly felt that he had been following us and taking photographs. I started to get angry at that. After a week of nothing, being lost in the wilderness, it felt good to have a purpose again.
By the time we reached the end of the street, we were practically jogging. We saw the man cross into the park, heading for the gardens. They were the ones that Will had worked on for the restoration project. The town had finally gotten around to putting up lights throughout the trees as well, although it still backed onto some wilderness. In what felt like another lifetime ago, I’d rushed out there to find one of the butter-carving competitors, Harmonious Twang, unconscious, about to be killed by an entity called a Morchint.
We followed him into the gardens, with him looking back at us over and again and speeding up until he was jogging as well. He went into the trees and we pursued. It was only when I heard the sound of the cars fading away that I suddenly realized we were away from people, away from anyone who might see what was about to happen. It was right then that a fireball came erupting out from behind a tree. The three of us dived on instinct, and I must have shoved at it because the fireball shot sideways and then burst against a tree, fortunately not setting it alight. The three of us ended up behind separate trees.
“Did he just throw a fireball at us?” Luce demanded, most affronted.
“He can’t be a witch. He’s a man, that’s not possible,” Molly wailed.
“Let’s take him down right now,” Luce said. I was about to call out to her to stop, just to think for a moment, but Luce was too quick.
I felt the magic surge around me and she stepped out from behind the tree. The man jumped out and flung another fireball, but Luce waved a hand and suddenly a clod of dirt was in its way. The fireball burst and then she flung her hand again, making a grunting sound at the weight of it, and the clod, about the size of a bowling ball, flew straight out and hit the man in the chest. He went down on the ground. Molly and I stepped out from behind our trees and then Molly cast a spell, growing roots up from the ground to wrap around the man’s arms and legs. We used to call it the Lilliput spell, and when we were teenagers we’d cast it on each other as pranks to trip each other up.
The man waved an arm again, the last one that was free, and from behind us there was a cracking sound as a tree broke and then toppled towards us. I pushed at it, but it was too heavy for me. Fortunately, though, my cousins were accomplished nature witches. They splintered the tree into pieces, with Molly and Luce both murmuring a quiet apology to it as they did. They turned back around as the roots finally grew over the man, holding him perfectly still. That, of course, was no barrier to a witch, to be held still in most cases, but of course the man could not be a witch because that was strictly women’s business.
We approached him warily, and as we did I caught that scent above the greenery, above the wet and cold earth, of meat about to spoil. I was no more than two feet from him when he stopped struggling, and I swear I saw a flash of light as whatever was in him vanished.
“Why are you following us?” Luce asked, standing over him.
The man looked up at her and then around, clearly confused.
“I was just at home. Where am I?” he said. I saw a silvery mark on his neck, the same one that I’d seen on Wolfram Dole and also Arlan. I knelt down and pulled part of his shirt aside, the roots giving way for me. The silvery lines were streaked like wet paint, as though whatever had left had made a mark in the direction it had traveled. Whatever it was, it had gone vaguely west—that was the best I could say, and unfortunately that included most of Harlot Bay.
“Did you tie me up?” the man asked, noticing he couldn’t move his arms and legs.
“Shush, now,” Molly said and put a hand on his head. The man started snoring a moment later.
Chapter 21
“Wow, that’s… witchy,” Peta said and took a bite of her sandwich.
“It’s crazy is what it is,” I said and took a bite of my own sandwich. I suddenly realized I hadn’t been fair to the girl at all. Although she was one of my best friends, we’d hardly seen each other the last few weeks with all the crazy things that had been happening, so when she’d arranged with me to catch up for lunch and then asked me how I was doing, I’d simply told her.
As in, everything.
I knew that she had news to share, and it was news that I wanted to hear too, given that she was still going out with Jack’s half brother Jonas and she was very excited about that, but I just had to unload. Especially after yesterday and having a fireball thrown at me. That fact seemed to be playing on Peta’s mind as well.
“So he actually threw a fireball at you and then later on had no memory?” she asked.
“His assistant where he works says that he’s been having these unexplained absences for quite a while now where he leaves and doesn’t come back for ages, but because he’s the boss, no one says anything about it. It’s starting to look like that whatever has been taking over these people’s bodies has been doing it for a really long time right under our noses,” I said.
Yesterday, after some hasty conversation, with the man unconscious and tied to the ground with tree roots, we’d eventually decided to call Sheriff Hardy. He’d come out to the park and we’d pulled the roots off the man and then reported to Sheriff Hardy what had happened, including the fact that the man had thrown a fireball at us. The sheriff took this reasonably well considering it was extremely witchy business.
When the man woke up, he couldn’t remember anything he’d done and in fact couldn’t remember talking to us either. His last memory was being at work and going into the storeroom, and then he was there in the park. He’d told us his name was Christian. Sheriff Hardy had quickly spun up a lie on the spot, that after leaving the Five Slices, the three of us had seen him acting erratically so we’d followed to see if we could help when he’d collapsed in a forest. Christian seemed extremely confused, and Sheriff Hardy had eventually arranged for him to go to the hospital to be checked out. After he was gone, we, of course, told Sheriff Hardy that a checkup wouldn’t do anything because what had happened to him was magical in nature.
Then last night we’d had another big discussion with the moms, given that we’d been attacked practically in broad daylight. The plan was starting to come together as the numbers in the family who were voting to go to Sunny Days Manor and steal the recordings were slowly becoming the majority. Although we hypothesized that the marks on Christian’s body might suggest a direction where the entity or thing that was inside him had gone, we couldn’t really do anything with that information. We were back to the wait-and-see while the moms thought about things and worked out what we might do.
“I’m sorry, I want to ask you about Jonas, tell me about him,” I said, trying to change the topic. I hadn’t seen him in ages either—Jack said he was out working all the time, and his office was empty every time I went by it.
“He’s good… great, wonderful… I mean, a witch who steals bodies? Seriously?” Peta asked.
“Sorry to unload on you.”
“It’s okay,” Peta said in a kind of distant way. She didn’t tell me much about Jonas apart from the fact they were still going out and it was great, and soon our lunch was over and I had to go off to a town council mee
ting.
This one I’d been alerted to by Carter, who had messaged me that apparently Coldwell would be there again advocating for the end of the free rent program and we should go there to argue against him. I certainly didn’t feel any obligation to Carter… except on this I kind of did. The last time the free rent vote had been held, we’d completely forgotten about it. Coldwell’s proposal to end the free rent program had been defeated, but he was still going back, trying to put pressure on the councilors. A small part of me felt I owed Carter for some reason.
I drove over to the chambers and went inside, finding a seat in back. A few other locals trickled in, including some of the usual familiar faces who always turned up to these things. I saw the mayor’s assistant, Eliza, a nervous pale girl hovering over to the side. She had four teenage boys with her and was giving them instructions.
That meant the mayor was probably going to be here, and if nothing else it promised to be a bit of entertainment in what would otherwise be a fairly boring affair.
One of the councilmembers had a gavel like a judge, which they banged to announce the meeting was beginning, but they had barely gotten through introducing things before suddenly the room went dark as the four teenagers pulled the curtains closed over the windows, and the sound of a trumpet burst out of nowhere at high volume. I don’t know if the mayor had brought in his own lighting guy, but suddenly there was a spotlight with one of the councilmembers squinting in it before they shuffled off to the side and the mayor appeared. I leaned forward in my seat, absolutely enthralled and wishing I’d brought my camera along just so I could take some photographs to publish online.
The mayor was dressed in what I guess you could call Elizabethan garb but turned up to ten, or perhaps a million. He had on the curled shoes with the ball at the end, bright colors, and between his dyed hair, which today was purple-blond with a red streak, and the glittering gold earrings down his ear, he looked partly like a pirate, somewhat like a court jester, and completely and utterly mad. The sound of the trumpet died away, and the mayor leaned in over a podium that he must’ve brought in.
“The Taming of the Shoe,” he whispered into the microphone.
I saw a pale arm reach out of the darkness and tug on his clothing and then some frantic whispers from Eliza.
“What?” the mayor said at full volume, his voice echoing through the chamber. More frantic whispering.
“Oh… The Taming of the Shrew,” the mayor said, giving us all a significant look.
“This wondrous play, one of Shakespeare’s most controversial, shall be opening in Harlot Bay for a limited season. But that’s not all…” the Mayor said.
The guy was charisma and seemed to be able to hypnotize anyone he met. His love of Harlot Bay was infectious, and he would go to any length to promote the town or lure events here. All around me, everyone was on the edge of their seats, waiting to find out what he might say next.
The light shut off, I swear only for an instant, and then came back on again, and now the mayor was sitting behind a small table in a wrought-iron chair, dressed in what I think were knickerbockers, looking like a nineteenth-century newspaper boy. He had on black-rimmed glasses and was writing something in a journal with a long feather. It was the absolute worst kind of historical mishmash of concepts, but I guess he was going for being a writer?
The mayor looked up at us.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you there,” he said, and everyone laughed, me included, although that was a well-worn joke. He stood up and strolled over to the podium, which had been moved to the side, the spotlight smoothly following him.
“Next on our agenda will be Writerpalooza, a festival for authors and readers in Harlot Bay. It will run for a week and will bring some of the finest writers in the world to our lovely town,” the mayor said.
We all clapped and cheered, and then the spotlight blinked off before suddenly the lights were up and the teenagers opened the curtains again. The mayor was gone and so was Eliza. The grumpy councilmember, who was well accustomed to this kind of thing, banged their gavel and moved on to the next item of business, which happened to be Coldwell. I hadn’t seen him in quite a while, but he hadn’t changed one bit. He was tall, with a thick head of hair, and always dressed extremely well, but you could tell there was something wrong with him deep down where it mattered. If you could take one of those oil slicks that ruined hundreds of miles of coastline and destroyed ecosystems, and then somehow make it into a person, that would be Sylvester Coldwell.
“Thank you, councilmembers, for your time. I wish to propose that Harlot Bay build a mall,” he began. I heard a gasp from the other side of the room behind me and turned to see Carter standing there, glaring at Coldwell. Coldwell didn’t take long putting forward his proposal. He wanted to buy land and build a mall which he felt would revitalize the business in the town, attract tourists and create jobs. He quickly finished, thanked the councilmembers for their time, and said he’d like to continue this discussion in the future before smoothly exiting the chamber.
I saw Carter follow him out, so I quickly jumped out of my chair and went after them. It was a good thing I moved quickly, because by the time I got out to the sidewalk, Carter and Coldwell were talking to each other in fierce whispers, both seeming ready to punch the other. I had a fleeting thought that I’d be happy to hold Coldwell’s arms behind his back while Carter got in a few solid punches to his gut.
“What’s happening, gents?” I said, although I already had a fairly good idea.
“Oh, another moocher on the free rent program. How delightful,” Coldwell said by way of greeting.
“We know everything you’ve done at Sunny Days Manor. We’re going to expose you. You’re done,” Carter said.
“I feel there’s probably an eviction notice coming your way soon,” Coldwell sneered. Then his expression changed in a flash as he hid away his anger and went back to smooth professionalism.
“You can’t stop the press,” Carter said.
Coldwell looked at me, ignoring Carter, and yet I saw him weighing up things.
“Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong,” he finally said to me. It wasn’t threatening. He said it as though he was merely commenting on the weather, so if anyone was watching they wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that he was actually making a threat.
“Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong? Are you a cartoon villain? I think I heard that line in a movie once. It’s a line from a film, right, Carter?” I said, my burst of anger turning to sudden mocking.
“Maybe you can get some of your local goons involved as well, and a white cat, and you can stroke it while you make evil plans,” Carter mocked. Without warning, Coldwell shoved Carter and then turned and walked away. Carter was okay, he didn’t fall, but then he yelled out at Coldwell, “Oh no, looks like I’m in trouble now!”
The moment Coldwell was gone, both of us laughed in a kind of nervous relief. It felt like we’d been in a fight and suddenly had bested the bully using our words instead of violence.
“He wants to build a mall, such a bad idea,” Carter said.
“I’m sure the council will vote no,” I said.
“They will once the truth about Sunny Days gets out,” Carter said. He said goodbye and walked off with a jaunty little hop in his step. I went in the other direction and was almost back at my car when suddenly Carter was behind me, breathing heavily. He must’ve been running.
“I just heard from a source,” he said between quick breaths. “Someone went to the cemetery and dug up two graves in the unmarked area,” he said.
I’d been riding on a kind of high after the mayor’s shenanigans and then seeing Carter openly mock Coldwell, but at this news I felt my stomach sink. The graves might be unmarked, but I knew who would have been buried in them.
Torrent and Stern.
“I thought you should know,” Carter said and then headed off in the other direction.
It wasn’t until I was half
way home that I realized how odd it was that Carter had thought that news was specifically for me. The graves were unmarked, so why would he think I would be interested in such a thing? It was another mystery to add to the pile.
Chapter 22
“It’s a reasonable question to ask where you got an all-black van from,” Molly said.
Aunt Cass heaved the wheel of the aforementioned all-black van, taking a corner at high speed, pressing all of us against the walls as we barreled through the night.
“I have bees,” Aunt Cass said.
“I’ve heard about the bees before, thank you,” Molly snapped.
“And those bees produce beeswax and that’s my beeswax and not your beeswax,” Aunt Cass continued, unperturbed.
“Don’t worry about where she got the van from, we just needed it, that’s all,” Mom said, putting the final touches of black camouflage around her eyes.
The news that two graves had been dug up and that they likely contained the remains of a Torrent or Stern had suddenly thrown our plan to break into Sunny Days Manor into high gear. It was now blindingly obvious that whatever was behind the possible body snatching was still here and still working on, as Luce said, some nefarious plan. Actually, I’m not sure nefarious is quite a strong enough word for it. I think once you get to digging up graves, you’re probably around evil or super-duper evil.
Aunt Cass was driving, and the rest of the family was crammed into the back of the van, dressed in all black from head to toe. We looked like a team of commandos out on a mission, or perhaps mimes.
“We look like we’re about to move the set on for an amateur theater production,” Luce said. She opened a metal box at her feet under the bench and started poking around.
“Is my crowbar back there?” Aunt Cass said.
“It’s a family crowbar,” Aunt Freya said.
