by Tess Lake
“How can you be sure?” he said.
“We were at his house. She was there and then they went into the bedroom and then complications ensued,” Aunt Cass said.
“Are you definitely sure?” Mattias repeated.
“One hundred percent. They were definitely going to the well to get a bucket of water,” Aunt Cass said.
Bucket of water?
Mattias vanished without another word, but before I could say anything to Aunt Cass, he reappeared.
“Can you please drive back into Harlot Bay? I have matters to attend to.”
Whatever it was that Mattias was tied to, maybe his toothbrush or the script or maybe even one of his shirts, he obviously couldn’t go more than a couple of miles from it. That meant he couldn’t go back into Harlot Bay unless we drove him there.
“We’re going back. You cannot harm anyone. If you cause harm to a single person, I swear to you that you will be spending the rest of eternity on the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean,” Aunt Cass said.
Mattias frowned at her but then must have accepted her demand because he vanished again. I started the car and drove back to Harlot Bay.
“Do you think it was dangerous telling him his widow was having an affair?” I asked Aunt Cass.
“Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind,” Aunt Cass said somewhat cryptically. But I was in no mood for it.
“Can you give me a straight answer, please?”
“Sheesh, okay,” she said in her best imitation of a teenage sarcasm queen. “One of the ways ghosts move on is when they realize and finally accept that their time here is done. Most of them have no interaction with our world whatsoever, so they’re faster to accept it. That’s why most ghosts disappear within the first day – it doesn’t take long of walking through walls, waving their arms in front of people, and trying to touch things to convince them that this world and this life are no longer for them. The dead live in our hearts forever until we too join them. But if a ghost realizes they have too much influence on our world and they build on that, they can become a force of pure malevolent evil because there is no further consequence for them. There are very few ways to harm them at that point. The sooner Mattias realizes that his life is truly over, the sooner we can get to work on helping him move on to somewhere better.”
We drove for a minute or two as I absorbed this new information about ghosts. Although Aunt Cass had previously made a big deal about “all I had to do was ask” in regard to witch-related matters, the actual reality was that she was very secretive a lot of the time, and even if I asked her directly, she sometimes wouldn’t give me all the information. I’d been working on helping John Smith move on for quite some time now, but thanks to his persistent memory problem, we hadn’t made very much progress.
“Do you think that would work on John Smith?” I asked.
Aunt Cass shrugged and narrowed her eyes at the approaching Harlot Bay. “He has some power over our world, so I don’t know if he’s going to let go of it in the end. He’s definitely not going to turn bad, but I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as that,” she said.
We drove back into Harlot Bay and to my office. Given it was somewhat central, we decided to store Mattias’s things there for the time being, so he at least could move around town and not come to bother us demanding we shift his possessions around. Up in my office, the number of boxes had tripled since last time I’d been there. Every single box had multiple warning symbols all over it.
“Are you going to tell me what this is all about yet? It’s the chili challenge thing, isn’t it?” I asked.
“So you snooped,” Aunt Cass said.
“Of course I snooped, I’m a Torrent. So can you tell me?”
Unbelievably, Aunt Cass made me sign the nondisclosure agreement that forbade me from saying anything about her business or what she was doing. It was about three pages of ultrafine print. Once I’d signed it and she’d whisked it away, she told me that she had started a chili sauce challenge online and was already shipping out bottles of chili sauce all over the country after people had signed an online waiver. Every box of chili sauce came with a cowboy hat, a stopwatch, and a pack of baby wipes for the inevitable aftermath.
Once she finished telling me, I sort of shrugged and looked around my very jam-packed office.
“You could have told us this. It’s certainly a lot more legal than that fireworks business you’ve been running.”
“Alleged fireworks business,” Aunt Cass corrected. Then she stepped closer to me and took my hand. “It’s always necessary for a witch to have a few secrets, don’t forget that,” she said. I wasn’t quite sure what to say in reply.
Someone else called, and Aunt Cass flung herself down in my chair and put her feet up on the desk to start having an argument with someone about shipping something extremely dangerous from Bolivia. I said a silent goodbye to my office, wondering if I’d ever really return there to work as a journalist. Even though I was only on a short-term contract with the movie studio and had no job lined up after that, the truth was that my journalism business had collapsed almost down to nothing. Essentially it was an expensive hobby at this point, and that was even with the free rent program that the city council was running. Despite the swirl of controversy surrounding Sylvester Coldwell, who had been linked to the crazy arsonists who had attacked Harlot Bay, the council was still going to be voting on the motion to discontinue the free rent program. If they decided not to continue it, then it was goodbye to my free office space.
When I got to the bottom of the stairs, the door of Bishop Developments opened and Jonas popped his head out and looked around, appearing quite worried.
When he saw me, a look of relief came across his face.
“Oh, Harlow, so glad it’s you,” he said. Then he looked over my shoulder and his eyes widened in fear. I turned to see a young blonde woman getting out of a car, wearing a very small miniskirt and carrying what looked to be a Tupperware container of chocolate brownies. It looked like her mother was driving and she was getting out the other side.
“Quick, you have to pretend to be my client, come in, come in right now,” Jonas said. He opened the door and pulled me inside to sit opposite him at his desk. A moment later, there came a knock on the door and someone called out, “Yoo-hoo!” in a high voice.
“Remember, pretend to be my client,” Jonas whispered to me.
I wasn’t quite sure how I was supposed to pretend to be a client of his, but I’d give it my best shot. I sat up straighter and tried to look as though I had been discussing architecture or house design all afternoon.
Jonas opened the door and, smiling at the young woman and her mother on the other side, apologized that he was in a meeting and couldn’t talk right now. The young woman still gave him the box of brownies while the mother said, “They’re very delicious. Bring the box back when you’re finished.”
Jonas thanked them and then closed the door as politely as he could. Then he slumped back down in his chair and put the box on the table. It was then I noticed a shelf of Tupperware containers filled with various sweet things.
“Having some lady trouble?” I asked.
Jonas rocked back in his chair and ran his hands through his hair.
“I made a big mistake, Harlow. I should never, never, never, never, never have said that I was here looking for my future wife. There are girls outside my door every day. I can’t go to lunch by myself anymore. Then I have all these mothers delivering me boxes of brownies or chocolate cookies, and they all say the same thing, ‘Bring the container back when you’re done,’ so then they get me to their house and try to interview me for being their daughter’s husband. I should have never said a thing,” Jonas said.
I laughed, and then because I was feeling a little hungry, I opened the box of brownies and took one out. It was chocolatey and delicious.
“This is a really good brownie,” I told Jonas, still giggling. “Why don’t you marry this girl?” I teased.
Jonas looked at me and then gave a rueful smile.
“Yeah, I know, it’s a good problem to have. I get it. What guy wouldn’t want beautiful girls turning up at his door at all hours? It’s… it’s crazy what they think I want. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a sucker for a beautiful pair of eyes, and baked goods are the way to a man’s heart, but I had no idea it would be this intense. Two girls got in a fight outside the office a few days ago. A fight!”
“So do you have a plan?” I asked, eyeing the boxes on the far wall. There were some chocolate chip cookies that were calling out to me.
“I’m just trying to live my life at this point,” Jonas sighed. He grabbed the box of chocolate chip cookies, opened it and placed it on the desk.
“Hey, so while you’re here, what can you tell me about that mansion out on Truer Island? You know, the old governor’s one?” he said.
I knew exactly what he was talking about. Back in the day of pirates and governors and all kinds of lawless behavior, the small but growing seaside town of Harlot Bay had built a mansion out on Truer Island for the governor to live in. It was truly a magnificent thing, about twice as big as our mansion, and that’s saying something. Unfortunately, the pirates who sailed up and down this area didn’t take too kindly to the governor having a house out there. So one day they took to firing upon it with their cannons. Normally, cannon fire would never have reached the mansion, given how far inland it was, but on this particular night there was a powerful storm blowing and somehow a cannon shot had flown all the way from the ship out in the harbor to smash right through the mansion roof, crashed down through some rooms, and hit a young maid in the leg. She was badly injured but recovered. However, she was unable to work after that and, this being that bad time in our history, went on to live a life of poverty.
Shortly after that, the governor abandoned the mansion and moved to the mainland. Surprisingly, the pirates didn’t take possession of the mansion at that point, nor did they burn it to the ground. It was largely left as it was, with some small repairs to cover up the hole in the roof. As Harlot Bay itself became the main hub of commerce and the pirate threat gradually faded away, Truer Island was largely abandoned as a settlement. There are still some houses over there and the old military Fort Scratchley sitting on the far coast, but they’re now relics of the past.
I told Jonas what I knew about the mansion while we shared chocolate chip cookies and he opened another box that contained a ginger crunch.
“That’s exactly what I want to know,” Jonas said after I finished with all my historical facts. “I’ve been thinking about buying the mansion and developing it into a hotel while still keeping some historical artifacts on site. Maybe like a small museum or something. What do you think of that?” he asked.
Despite the fact that the moms owned a hotel themselves and didn’t particularly need the competition, I wasn’t going to let something like that stand in the way of what was a pretty good idea.
“That sounds great. An old historical hotel out on Truer Island would be amazing,” I said. Jonas shuffled through some papers on his desktop until he found what he was looking for and gave it to me. It was a planning application to turn the lighthouse into a full-fledged tourist attraction. It was from a company by the name of Sunny Delights. He then passed me another piece of paper, this one an application for the redevelopment of the ice skating rink. That one had been going for a long time, and now it looked like they’d gotten approval to tear it down and rebuild it completely.
“It looks like there’s going to be a lot of development going on, and I think if I can get this hotel going it’s going to ride that wave,” Jonas told me.
“Definitely, this sounds amazing,” I said. My general view of Harlot Bay was that it was a struggling tourist town on the way down, but things like this gave me hope that there would be a future for all of us after all. Jonas’s phone beeped from his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the message.
“Okay, I do have a meeting now on the other side of town. Can you walk me out in case there are any girls waiting for me?”
“Sure,” I laughed and took my final chocolate chip cookie.
I went out first with Jonas close behind me. Sure enough, a little down the street, there was a young woman leaning against a car with her mother behind the wheel. Both of them gave me a death glare as I walked Jonas to his car. As soon as he was inside, I hurried over to my car and got out of there.
I definitely did not want to tangle with the mothers and daughters of Harlot Bay who were hunting for a husband.
Chapter 16
“Is this illegal?” I asked Jack as he jiggled the lockpick in the lock.
“Only if we get caught,” Jack said as the lock finally gave way and he opened the door.
The night had taken a surprising and I guess somewhat illegal turn. Jack had taken me out to dinner at the Curry Cauldron (butter chicken, lamb rogan josh, mango lassi, butter naan, everything as delicious as usual) and then we’d gone for a walk around the center of Harlot Bay.
Then he had told me about all the amazing sets he and the other builders had been working on at the other location across town. Did I want to see them? Yeah, sure, I’d love to!
So Jack had driven us over to the other warehouses, and I’d discovered the rest of the sentence added to do you want to see the sets was do you want to lockpick the door open and sneak in to see the sets? I was quite surprised that my former police officer boyfriend would have such semi-illegal ideas up his sleeve, and then very surprised when I discovered he literally had some lockpicks up his sleeve, which he was very adept at using.
We slipped into the warehouse and Jack closed the door behind us.
The main lights of the warehouse were off, but there were dim safety lights glowing that were obviously left on all night. They revealed that the entire interior of the warehouse had been filled with multiple sets for future scenes to be filmed. Directly in front of us was the full interior of an incredible candy store. Even in the dim light, I could see it was painted in vivid greens, blues, reds and yellows. There were multiple jars of candy on all the shelves and the sign above it proclaimed it as “Aunt Sue’s Sweetshop.”
“Come this way,” Jack whispered. I followed him through the dim of the warehouse, passing more open sets that had been built. There was a police officer’s main office that looked very similar to Sheriff Hardy’s, even right down to all the stacks of paper everywhere, the inside of a jail cell, a small child’s bedroom that looked like it belonged to a girl judging by the pile of dolls in the corner, and a small bathroom that looked absolutely disgusting. The bath and the walls were covered in what looked like a very convincing black mold and the paint was peeling. Jack led me around a corner, and I saw there was a whole lot of earthmoving equipment parked over on the far side of the warehouse. There was a yellow bulldozer as well as a backhoe used for digging trenches. I knew that some of the scenes were being filmed out on Truer Island and also a bit out of Harlot Bay, and they’d been using the earthmoving equipment to get the exact shape to the landscape they needed. I followed Jack until we came to the front of a house. It was, as they say, totes adore. White picket fence, lush green grass, beautiful flowers, a little red-and-white mailbox with a flag sticking up, and window boxes overflowing with purple and red flowers.
“Wow,” I breathed.
“You should see the interior,” Jack said and opened the front door. I was expecting it to be a façade, but they had built pretty much an entire house. There were beautiful polished wood floors, a staircase, photos all over the walls, and rooms that had been fully decorated. There were two bedrooms, a completely stocked kitchen, and a small bathroom on the ground floor, and then upstairs was a gigantic master bedroom. That’s where the illusion ended, however. The back of the house was missing as well as the roof so they could get the camera equipment inside to film their scenes. Jack showed me the hydraulics that had been set up behind some of the walls for a pivotal scene th
at was coming in a few days. Ivy Spark’s magic was going to go out of control and virtually shake the house to pieces. It was going to crack in half and she was going to escape before it crashed into rubble behind her. We were up on the top floor in the master bedroom when Jack explained this to me, and it felt a little too close for comfort. My power over the storm was still growing stronger, and thus far, the only plan I had was to either exile myself out at Truer Island (which was what the moms suggested) or perhaps follow Aunt Cass’s advice and get so worked up and cause such a gigantic storm that something broke, and perhaps the power would fade away.
“Pretty amazing, huh?” Jack said to me and touched my fingers.
I started out of my imagination and smiled back at him. There was a light not far from the window that shone in and reflected off his eyes. They were closer to blue than green tonight, like the cool waters of the ocean.
“One day I’m going to build a house like this to live in,” Jack said.
The urge rose up inside me to say, “I can’t wait to live there with you,” but I managed to hold it down. After seeing all the girls chasing after Jonas, I understood that sometimes it was possible to seem a little too crazy. Although some small part of me whispered that it was everything I wanted most desperately. It was a dream almost too large to contemplate – a picket fence, some flowers, a house, a kitchen, and Jack.
“Sounds amazing,” I said and stepped closer to him.
I became very aware of where we were – a master bedroom lit by a dim light, all alone. I moved closer to Jack and kissed him, feeling his light stubble rub against my face. He kissed me back and those butterflies in my stomach fluttered so hard I think I nearly floated off the ground. Before anything else could happen, though, there was a sudden clang from out in the warehouse – the sound of heavy metal hitting a concrete floor.
We broke apart in shock and both looked out the window down into the warehouse. In the distance, barely illuminated, was the figure of a man moving to pick up a stand of scuba gear that he had knocked over. We both moved forward and hid on each side of the window. Without speaking, we knew that this man shouldn’t be here and that he was up to no good. It was too dark to see his features, but we saw him pick up the scuba gear and then draw something out of his pocket before he did something to it. There were multiple scuba tanks lined up, and he methodically moved down the row, spending only about thirty seconds at each one.
