Runes and Roller Skates

by Amanda A. Allen

  Luna was instantly distracted, giving Scarlett the gift of time alone with Ella. The moment Luna and Harper left, Scarlett and Ella tied on their skates. Ella took Scarlett’s hand without thought and Scarlett paused in the glory of it. Her baby was growing up. Soon there would be a day when she didn’t tuck her hand into Scarlett’s without a thought, a time when those days will have passed and maybe they would go months, even years without the simple peace of holding hands.

  “Wanna race?” Scarlett asked Ella, loving the way her face lit up.

  They rolled down the sidewalk slow at first until Ella got her rhythm and then sped along Arbor Street. There was a several mile stretch of sand. There was a rise of rocks between the sand and the rolling green hills.

  “Baby,” Scarlett called after a couple of miles, “I’ve got to stop.”

  She leaned over her knees, huffing, and attempting to catch her breath. Ella skated circles around her mother, laughing and teasing about the way Scarlett couldn’t keep up.

  “Just…just…give me a minute,” Scarlett huffed.

  “Mommy…what’s that?” The panic in Ella’s voice had Scarlett jerking upright and rushing over to her daughter.

  “Oh,” Scarlett said as she saw what her daughter was pointing at. She’d gone right into high alert disaster mode. “Back away.”

  She’d seen something like that before. She did not want Ella cementing those type of memories into her head.

  “Mommy?”

  “Turn around,” Scarlett snapped at Ella and when her daughter didn’t obey, Scarlett physically turned her daughter around, pushed her down to sit on her bottom, and ordered, “Do. Not. Move. I mean it. We’re talking no allowance, no dessert, no horseback riding type of trouble.”

  “Okay,” Ella said with her customary sneer, but there was the slightest quaver to her voice.

  “Baby, trust Mommy,” Scarlett said gently, dropping a kiss on Ella’s head. And then she said, “Don’t think about it.”

  A swathe of red hair, a creamy white arm, a hand that wasn’t moving. How could Ella not think about it? How could it not be burned into her little mind?

  Scarlett took several steps forward, but the person was on the rocks below. If she didn’t climb down, she wouldn’t be able to see if she were alive.

  “Hello,” Scarlett called but getting a response was a weak hope, and she wasn’t surprised when all she heard was the sniffling of Ella and the call of the gulls.

  Scarlett took off her roller-skates and climbed several rocks down. She tried leaning out, but there was no way to see the person—to see if there was hope, without keeping on. What was she doing? What would Ella do if Scarlett fell? What…goodness…Scarlett found a spot where she could stand and she pulled out her phone. She dialed 9-1-1.

  “9-1-1 operator. What is your emergency?”

  “This is Scarlett Oaken,” she said, her lip was trembling, but she needed to pull it together. “I took Ella skating along the bluff. You know where the path is. We saw a body. Oh goodness. I'm climbing down, but I don’t want to leave Ella helpless. Just in case.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Scarlett,” the operators said, “I’m sending help. Just wait.”

  Scarlett didn’t want to be stupid. She didn’t want to be doing dangerous things. She didn’t want to be down here at all. But she’d never forgive herself if someone died because of her fears. What if there was still time for help? She slid the phone back into her pocket and climbed down the next rock. Her feet lost their grip against the damp rock, and she tumbled down a rock ledge, landing next to the staring moss-green eyes of a dead woman.

  There was no question of saving her. Her skin was grey, her mouth was parted, her eyes were open. Scarlett was sure, if she touched the body, it would be cold. She skittered back instead and stared. In the distance, she could hear the ringing of sirens. She took in the scene more out of self-defense than a desire to know more. Scarlett just didn’t want to stare into those dead eyes. It took her a minute to realize that the girl was as barefoot as Scarlett. And that there were small tracks leading away from the body, over the edge, and down to the rocks below.

  Scarlett had wiped up footprints around that size a hundred times, a thousand times. Those footprints belonged to a child. Perhaps a little older than Ella given the size. Scarlett’s eyes widened and her heart stuttered. No! She didn’t want to find a little kid two more rocks down. She didn’t want to see a length of long, tangled, child hair. She couldn’t handle it, but she also couldn’t keep from climbing further. She couldn’t leave a child alone if he or she needed help. Scarlett started climbing down farther, following the kid’s path. What if they’d fallen too? But as Scarlett got closer to the body, she was no longer distracted by the dead eyes, because she saw the wound. She was by no means an expect, but she was pretty sure she was looking at bullet wound. This was no fall. No accident. This was murder.

  And there was a child involved.

  Chapter 3

  “Scarlett,” a voice called down. She glanced up and saw a face she didn’t expect. Seeing Lex again at Ella’s birthday party had not properly prepared, Scarlett at all for Lex, the Private Investigator, to be answering police calls. Especially given that sheriff’s uniform which looked infinitely better on him rather than Wally, the idiot. Regardless, he couldn’t keep her from following the footsteps of the child. Scarlett had no way of knowing how long the girl had been laying there, but it was possible the child was still around.

  The bluff was at least 150 feet high. She had climbed down to the first ledge where the dead girl and the child had probably tried hiding. Or maybe getting away. Scarlett looked over the edge and caught a glimpse of a small footprint in the sand. There was quite the jump between this ledge and the landing. How had the child done it?

  Scarlett slid her feet over the side and tried lowering herself. She lost her grip on the ground and started to slide.

  “Scarlett,” Lex shouted, “Stop!”

  Scarlett shook her head and let her body slide down.

  “We’ll get you a rope,” Lex shouted.

  Closing her eyes and hoping the landing wouldn’t be too painful, Scarlett let go. Her feet hit the next rock and she was able to stop her slide. She cracked open her eyes, found a niche in the rock and dared to let go long enough to grab hold. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She was sure it was Lex, but at this point, she had to focus to keep herself from falling.

  She climbed down another rock and another and found she was finally about 10 feet from the bottom of the rocks. She took a deep breath and worked slowly. The danger had lessened to the point where she found she was able to take in enough of her surroundings to look for signs of the child, but there were none.

  All signs of tracks from the child were gone. She answered her phone the next time it rang, but her breathless hello seemed to really infuriate him.

  “What are you thinking?” His shout came before she could explain she’s climbed the rocks time and again.

  “There are tracks of a kid leading down here,” Scarlett said, rubbing her brow and glancing around. There were no further physical signs, but the knowing of the druids whispered that she was on the right track. If she hadn’t seen a couple of tracks on the way down…she’d have thought she was wrong without that knowing.

  “Oh,” Lex said. He stifled a curse and she could hear Ella behind him asking, “Is that my mommy? That’s potty talk.”

  Scarlett would have laughed at Lex’s follow up curse any other day. But not today. Not after seeing that poor dead woman.

  “I’m calling my mother. Tell Ella I’m on my way,” Scarlett said and hung up.

  “Don’t climb back up,” Lex said.

  “Yes, obviously,” Scarlett replied. The rocks had given way to beach grasses and sand, and the grasses were stabbing her bare feet. She made her way through the grass to the pure sand and then down the beach enough where she could walk out. As she moved through the sand, she called her mother. There wasn’t any sig
n of the child, but it didn’t change the need to find him or her. There was something about this child. This particular child that was tugging at Scarlett’s senses.

  “Hey,” Scarlett said, “I need you.”

  Her mom had already started the car by the time Scarlett had finished explaining. She jogged down the beach, towards the wooden steps. She needed to get back to Ella as soon as possible. Maye, Scarlett’s mother, would take Ella to the family property, Oaken house. Perhaps Maye should also take Luna and the animals to the house. The idea that there was another murderer in Mystic Cove was enough to send Scarlett into high alert. She wasn’t a woman to ignore her instincts and instantly decided her girls and animals needed the protection of the family property and the magics that had grown there as the property had passed from one generation to the next.

  Even still, Scarlett felt a moment of intense gratitude that there was no reason to believe that her girls would be in danger. There had been a murder in Mystic Cove right after Scarlett and her daughters had moved home. And Luna, Scarlett’s youngest daughter, had been a witness. Scarlett’s druidic senses gave her a powerful sense of discernment which told her that the murderer needed to be found or Luna could be at risk. That premonition had sent Scarlett on a quest, jumping into the small town gossip and forcing her to reconnect to the town she’d barely moved back to.

  It was enough to reset the town’s opinion of her. She’d gone from being the weird, world-traveling, leave-your-grove-behind-druid to the protective-mom-crime-solver. To Mystic Cove, she might be a bit of a freak, but they loved her. When Scarlett refocused on the crime scene she’d just seen, she saw Lex being lowered down to the girl, and Scarlett felt the sense of something…a need. Someone needed her. She was sure it was the child. This child was important to her.

  Scarlett felt resolve firm as her daughter threw herself into her arms. Was the missing child safe? Was someone protecting her or him? Scarlett’s senses pressured her with an ambiguous need she was pretty sure belonged to the child. They needed help. Scarlett was going to find that child and make sure they were safe.

  * * * * *

  “What do we do?” Maye asked Scarlett. They were standing down the road from the scene. Scarlett wasn’t ready to let Ella go even though Maye could take her to the property right away. Once Scarlett had confirmed the person was dead and that Lex was taking care of it, Ella melted down. She’d been tough until that moment, but then she’d sort of curled into Scarlett and was crying into Scarlett’s shoulder, and Scarlett needed the time to console her daughter and just feel her breathe. She might be 8 and she might be big now, but she was still Scarlett’s baby, and this was some terrible happenings.

  “I don’t know,” Scarlett said.

  She was humming softly in between talking with her mother, and whispering to Ella in a way that drew her daughter into the nature around them—into the call of the gulls, into the sound of the wind, into the power of the sea. It wasn’t so much deliberate puffy cloud thoughts they were putting into Ella. Scarlett's druidic ability softened what happened to Ella—it was as if Scarlett had taken her daughter on a hundred walks in the woods, a hundred trips fishing and watching the water. A hundred hours of meditation watching the waves. All at once, all together, giving Ella the benefit of time and meditation and nature. It wouldn’t change what had happened, she wouldn’t forget, but in a few days—it would feel like it had been months.

  “I am feeling….called,” Scarlett said, examining her mother’s face. It was a lot like what Scarlett would look like in 25 years. To Scarlett, her mother was, however, far more beautiful.

  “Called to get involved?” Maye’s face showed all the emotion that Scarlett would feel if it were Ella saying this nonsense. Worry. Hesitation. Reluctant acceptance.

  Scarlett nodded.

  “Scarlett…” Her name was a long drawn out thing from her mother’s face. “I don’t want to…”

  But Maye couldn’t elaborate, not with Ella potentially listening. Scarlett knew, however, what her mother was not saying. That she didn’t want to lose Scarlett. That she could so easily have died last time. If Lex and Gus hadn’t been there when the murderer had attacked after Scarlett got too close to who the killer was—Scarlett might not have survived if she’d been on her own.

  She hadn’t been alone, though, had she? She still had good friends. Gus and Lex had distracted Kelly, the killer, at just the right moment. They’d been there as backup, so Scarlett hadn’t been so scared when she’d let herself be bait. Scarlett might not be so lucky this time.

  “Mom…” Scarlett looked at her mother and then at Ella, and Scarlett knew she had no business putting herself at risk. But she also knew that a child was missing.

  Lex came striding over. He’d apparently gone down to look at the bottom, confirm the girl was dead, and come back up. The poor acne covered meter-maid was waiting along with Gus who was the town’s part-time forensics expert. His vampire senses made him nearly invaluable combined with forensic training. The two of them looked at each other and then at Scarlett.

  “We have some information,” Lex said. He’d probably already guessed that Scarlett intended to interfere in what was his investigation this time. But slap a sheriff’s badge on his chest or not, he wasn’t from Mystic Cove and there was no way the town would be as helpful with him as they would be with her.

  “Just a minute,” Scarlett replied, absentmindedly rubbing her daughter’s back. She pulled Ella away from her neck and said, “Would you like to go with Nana to ride horses and have a cookout?”

  “Can we have s’mores with peanut butter cups?”

  Scarlett took a deep breath of relief when she saw that the horror had faded from Ella’s eyes.

  “I think that would be an excellent choice,” Scarlett said. “And Harper said she wanted you to sleep with her in her old room. Slumber-party style. I bet Auntie Harper will even come out and sleepover with you.”

  Maye choked off a laugh, but Ella’s eyes widened and she looked delighted instead of haunted. That result was worth almost anything, although she should probably prepare for Harper’s revenge. Knowing Harper, Scarlett should expect another kitten.

  Maye drove away with a much happier Ella and Scarlett turned to face the boys.

  “The victim is named Bridget Madison. She worked at the dealership,” Lex said. “She was just a normal kid. How did she even end up in Mystic Cove?”

  Though Mystic Cove was visited often by non-supernaturals, the permanent residents were almost entirely one of the supernatural races or their spouses. It was very rare for anyone to move into Mystic Cove who wasn’t different. But…wait…Scarlett thought back on that dead face, imagining it alive, and realized she’d seen the victim alive. She froze, the memory overplaying the vision of the girl dead, and somehow it made it all the more awful.

  “Oh,” she said, sounding as if she’d been punched hard. “Oh goodness, I saw her at the dealership. Mr. Day ordered her around like a dog.”

  “She has a little sister,” Gus said. “Lex sent up a picture of her face, and Johnny knew her. They’re around the same age, and Johnny knows her boyfriend.”

  “Who’s Johnny?”

  “The kid puking over there,” Lex said without turning around. “Gus is going to take Bridget to the morgue.”

  “Ok,” Scarlett said, waiting. Given his tone that had been a leading statement. He wanted something from her. Given the way he’d taken off after she’d helped him last time, she wasn’t that inclined to be helpful.

  “I’m worried the little girl will run if it’s just me,” Lex said carefully.

  Oh shoot, Scarlett thought all plans to tell him no fleeing. She considered. Or, at least pretended to consider, to assuage her pride. The moment she knew a child was involved, she had known she wasn’t going to just…back out.

  What she said, however, was, “But you’re so charming and…something.”

  He grinned at her with that charm, that knowledge that he knew he w
as handsome, that assurance that she’d want to help him. She wasn’t that excited about helping him, actually, and she didn’t like the return of this confident jerk. The overt, charming confidence was a front—she had thought. She’d thought that she’d found the more-real version of him. Maybe though he’d just played her. Figured out she’d hated that swagger and he'd changed to get what he want. And then he’d left.

  But to a little girl would he be charming? He did look like a thug. He was broad, muscled. He shaved his head and walked with a strut. If he were cast in a TV show, he’d be the stereotypical bad guy. She could see how a little girl would be terrified. She was actually surprised he was self-aware enough to know a kid would be afraid of him. That was selling him short, she knew, but she wasn’t particularly pleased with him and didn’t care so much about that.

  “So you want me to go with you to the house? In case the kid is there?”

  Lex nodded once. His jaw was tight, his eyes were hidden by reflective sunglasses, but her druidic senses told her that he was worried. She was too. She glanced at Gus and saw his pale face, the way he stared into the distance, the way his shoulders were tight, and she was sure he was feeling the same anxiety. None of them wanted to find a dead kid. None of them wanted to tell a little girl that her sister was dead, but then again—Scarlett was pretty sure the child knew that her sister was gone.

  “Ok,” Scarlett said, “I’ll go, but I need to get real shoes.”

  They both looked down at her bare feet and then glanced to where her roller-skates were sitting on the side of the road.

  Lex nodded and headed for the cop car. Gus stayed behind, his black gaze examined her face and he finally said, “Please be careful.”

  Scarlett tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and said, “I will be.”

  “Don’t fall in love with Lex, either.”

  She pressed her lips together, took in a long breath and let it whoosh out searching for puffy cloud thoughts and failing miserably. So she said instead, “I’m not sure I’m ready to fall in love with anyone.” Lie. “And I’m not that happy with Lex.” Truth.