by Esme Addison
A Hex for Danger
AN ENCHANTED BAY MYSTERY
Esme Addison
To my family for their unconditional love and continued support
Rodzina nie jest czymś ważnym. Jest wszystkim.
The family is not important. It is everything.
—A Polish proverb
Chapter One
“Coming through,” called out a voice.
Lidia Sobieski descended the flight of stairs, her arms laden with a large wooden crate of bottles filled with herbal tea that clinked together as she made her way through the crowd of customers.
Alex rushed to meet her aunt on the landing and took the crate from her. Even though she was in her sixties, with her long dark hair laced with silver, and a gently lined face, Alex couldn’t help but see her mother every time she looked at her.
“To the counter, dear,” her aunt directed, then gave Alex a second glance. “You feeling okay?”
It was an unsettling feeling, the effect her aunt’s appearance had on her. Her mother had died when she was seven, and the image she had of her in her mind was that of a favorite photograph. But it was a two-dimensional image, locked in time when her mother had been in her early thirties. But now, she could see what her mother may have looked like had she lived.
And Alex was getting used to it. Used to having lots of family around. Used to living in a small town where everyone knew who she was. She smiled. “Yes Ciocia Lidia, I feel great.”
She placed the crate on the end of the counter while her aunt arched a dark eyebrow at her daughter Minka, who began grabbing the bottles and placing them in an ice-filled oak barrel. “Ever since word got out that we have ready-to-go bottles of our Keep Coolade herbal tea, we’re been out of stock. And now I’m backordered.” She exhaled in exasperation. “I’ve promised the mermaid festival committee that I would provide beverages for the unveiling of the mermaid mural in a few days.”
The mermaid mural. Alex smiled. Bellamy Bay was proud of its mermaid heritage. The town was founded on the story that when Captain John Bellamy’s ship landed in the area, there was already mermaids here. He’d written about it in his journals and told anyone with ears about his discovery. Of course, no one believed it was true; however, the town used the mermaid story as a fun marketing ploy that culminated in an annual summer festival that continued to attract mermaid lovers from miles around.
“I gave Kamila several complimentary bottles to hand out on the boardwalk today,” Lidia continued.
“That’s right,” Minka said. “She’s got bike patrol duty today on the beach.”
“Alex,” Lidia began, her eagle eye scanning the shop, “the perfumes are getting low. Why don’t you restock those and leave Minka to the teas? They’re in the backroom on the table, ready to go.”
“Of course,” Alex said. After retrieving them from upstairs, she began refilling the wood shelves that were almost bare save for a couple of items. She enjoyed handling the beautiful crystal bottles of various shapes and jeweled-toned colors. Each glass was filled with handcrafted, enchanted scents—the one she was holding had been inspired by her mother and had rose, jasmine, and magnolia. The perfumes filled the air around Alex as she delicately placed each bottle in its place. After restocking for the better part of an hour, she decided to take a break.
Rising from her kneeling position, she stood, wiping her hands on her purple apron, and went to the front of the shop to gaze out of the large plate-glass windows. It was something she did several times a day, a nice reminder of her sweet new life. Since the onset of summer, the small town of a few thousand had exploded with tourists and summer residents. Main Street was packed with visitors shopping or on their way to the beach or just enjoying their time in the sun. She smiled, only a few months ago she’d been a visitor to this town.
But now she was home in the town of her mother’s birth, a community about an hour east of Wilmington on the North Carolina coast. She spent all of her time with her aunt, cousins, and friends, some old, some new. And she couldn’t be happier.
Her gaze went to the street lined with multicolored shops with jeweled-toned awnings, buildings that had been standing for over two hundred years. Her world now consisted of clean white sidewalks dotted with wrought iron benches, large pots of flowers, shade trees, and sea breezes. So much character, so much history packed in a small unassuming area, and she loved it—loved being a part of a small town with all of its eccentricities and quirks. Like a parade, she thought with a thrill of delight—an actual small-town parade.
She could still see the red, white, and blue confetti that littered the streets after last week’s Fourth of July parade down the town’s historic center. American flags had waved from every shop front, and Alex smiled, recalling how many locals and tourists alike had filled the downtown sidewalks to watch the local high school band march by along with fifteen or so other floats. Alex laughed, thinking about how her cousin Minka, who had joined her in the crush of people on the sidewalk, oohed and aahed over the participants in the parade like it was her first time seeing such an event.
“Excuse me, miss?” a customer said, tapping her on the shoulder, interrupting her reverie. “Those teas I’ve heard so much about?”
“Our Keep It Coolade?” Alex guessed. When the man nodded, she pointed him in the right direction with a smile.
Botanika, the herbal apothecary Alex worked at, was crowded with customers. It was one of the reasons it was so difficult to restock the shelves this morning. Too many people in the shop, but what a wonderful problem for a business to have. With a sigh of contentment, Aleksandra Daniels, or Alex as she was known to her family and friends, turned away from the window and begin making her way back to her shelves.
Still lost in thought, she marveled that only three months earlier she’d quit her job in Manhattan as a risk analyst at a Fortune 500 company, relocated down South, and begun working with her aunt Lidia in their family business. This was the same family—her mother’s family—that her recently deceased father had forbade her to see. Twenty years had passed since she’d last spent a summer in Bellamy Bay, playing with her younger cousin, Minka, who helped her own mother run the family business, and Minka’s older sister, Kamila, who was a police officer in town.
Of course, now she thought she understood why her father had been so reluctant for her to see them after her mother died… they had secrets, secrets he didn’t want her to be a part of. “You can only believe in what you see,” her father had told her over and over again. “Anything else is fairy tales.”
But that was the thing … Once Alex finally returned to Bellamy Bay, she’d discovered that fairy tales were kind of true, and the world as she knew it was not as it seemed. For example, the world was made up of Magicals and Mundanes. Magicals were people who had certain abilities and powers, while Mundanes were your everyday garden-variety human. And Alex and her mother and aunt and cousins? Well, let’s just say they weren’t mundane—not by a long shot.
They were, in fact, descended from a real mermaid, the same one featured in Poland’s famous myth about the Mermaid of Warsaw. Alex’s mother’s family had immigrated to North Carolina from Poland generations ago. But before she’d moved to Bellamy Bay, she’d never heard of that myth, and she certainly hadn’t known she was descended from a mermaid.
Back at the shelves, she noticed the shelf was filled and the crate was gone.
I finished up, Minka telepathed to her. I had a break at the counter.
Alex looked around the shop and saw her cousin grinning at her from behind the register. She was ringing up a customer and having a telepathic conversation with Alex at the same time. Now that, Alex thought, takes skill.
Minka, who was a couple years younger tha
n her, wore her curly brown hair pulled up in a high ponytail and accented with a blue ribbon that matched her blue shop apron. She had a heart-shaped faced that gave her a wide-eyed look of innocence, and she could always be relied upon to provide positivity and good vibrations.
Thanks, Mink.
Alex went to the back of the shop, where, on a bar that ran half the length of the back brick wall, they kept ready-to-serve, ice-cold pitchers of herbal tea for the customers. They constantly needed refilling, and it had been almost an hour since she’d last looked at them. Two out of the four pitchers were empty, so she grabbed them and headed to the back room, where they could be refreshed from reserves in the refrigerator located there. As she made her way to the back, she saw a group of preteen girls in Bellamy Bay mermaid T-shirts, and with strands of pink and blue glittery mermaid hair mixed into their own, and stifled a laugh.
If they only knew, she thought with a smile.
She still remembered the evening her aunt had sat her down with her cousins and explained the secret of her heritage and the myth at the center of it all. The Syrenka Warszawska, or the Mermaid of Warsaw, her aunt began, a legend, though of course it was true:
Many, many generations ago, maybe as far back as the twelfth century, in the village that would eventually be known as Warsaw, a trio of fisherman noticed that whenever they went fishing, the waves were stronger than normal, their nets were always getting tangled, and their fish were set free. At night they watched the Vistula River, to discover and perhaps trap the source of their frustration, and discovered a beautiful syrenka, a mermaid, was the culprit. They captured her, but she enchanted them with her singing, and they set her free. But then a wealthy merchant trapped her and placed her in a cage, with plans to profit from her uniqueness. The fishermen heard her pleas for help and helped her to escape. She was so grateful for their kindness that she vowed to use her magical abilities to protect the city and its people.
The mermaid’s image has been on the Warsaw coat of arms since at least the sixteenth century, and statues of her stood all over Warsaw, with a shield and sword to represent her fierce protectiveness. Her aunt had explained that although the myth ended there, the Mermaid of Warsaw’s story did not. She went on to find love and have children, who in turn did the same. Over time, they lost their ability to shapeshift from Mer to human form, and most left Poland to explore the world and live in other countries.
Pitchers filled once again, Alex carried both crystal containers back into the main room of the shop and set them down on the bar.
It still sounded crazy to Alex, and she had to pinch herself at times to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Only the reality wasn’t like the cartoons and movies. None of the women in the Sobieski family had fins or spent time living in the sea or sunning themselves on large rocks while singing songs. It was a lot more rational and reasonable than that.
Instead, the Sobieski women had two legs, just like a Mundane. They were all strong swimmers, but because Alex’s mother had inexplicably drowned in Bellamy Bay when Alex was a child, she herself steered clear of the water. They could heal themselves—and others—which was an amazingly helpful ability to have. They sent telepathic thoughts to other Magicals and could will Mundanes to do things—if they were okay with that type of manipulation—and, oh yeah, she could totally influence the weather and command water and any sort of moisture, really. She was still learning all of the various terms and history—and techniques.
There was a council that regulated the use of magic in the community, punished Magical lawbreakers in ways a Mundane court could not and determined the proper percentage of black magic that could be practiced annually. The Council also maintained a list: Spells for Trouble that were forbidden to be practiced. And they established ethical good neighbor guidelines that Magicals were recommended to follow, like never reading the minds of others, even though you could. Or never making someone do something against their freewill.
It was, in fact, a lot to process and remember, and Alex wasn’t always good at it, but she was, if nothing else, persistent. And if her aunt Lidia and cousins could do it, so could she. What she wasn’t so sure about was keeping the secrets. It was hard. A challenge—and one she didn’t enjoy.
Having a policeman for a father, she’d found life easier if she was honest and always told the truth. Now, her entire life was a lie. She was keeping things from her boyfriend, Jack, who was a detective; her friend Pepper, who was an inquisitive journalist; and all of the town folk generally. The burden to lie to almost everyone she cared about wore on her. But it was necessary. Her aunt had made that very clear to her, when she shared that many years ago their great-aunt had been killed when a witch hunter came to town hunting Magicals. So secrecy was imperative.
T-shirts that screamed that mermaids lived in town seemed like the opposite of discretion. But then again, maybe it was brilliant. After all, their Mermaid heritage was hidden in plain sight. And the town’s people—did they know that mermaids lived among them? Did they know that Magicals were a thing? Not exactly. They knew that the Sobieski women were a little different—but most couldn’t put their finger on it, while a few others point blank said they were witches.
Aunt Lidia had explained that the women in their family had always been known as healers—it was their role in the community, the way they earned a living. Back in the 1700s, when the town was first founded, they’d healed people from various diseases and attended successful births where both mother and child should have perished. They did practically everything but raise people from the dead, and that ironically enough was the genesis of the term “witch.” Disgruntled customers, grieving widows, desperate mothers, and others began calling them witches when they couldn’t perform miracles, do the impossible. And the term had stuck.
Witch was a term that Aunt Lidia didn’t like. In fact, she categorically denied it. Just as Minka embraced it. They weren’t witches—they were mermaid descents Aunt Lidia insisted. However, they lived in a patriarchal society that deemed all women with powers to be witches.
But they were magical. They could enchant … things.
Alex surveyed the shops, as always finding immense pleasure at the variety of items they made and sold to the community. Botanika offered many kinds of herbal remedies, bath and body products, tisanes, candles, and the like. And while some were … Mundane, many were not. Aunt Lidia and Minka enchanted some of the products for added effect and benefits. For example, though a peppermint tea could naturally help a sore throat simply because it is scientifically proven to have antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory properties, an enchanted peppermint tea, filled with the intention to heal any issues in one’s respiratory system while bolstering their immune system, compelled customers to sing the praises of the shop and return time and time again, or buy online if they weren’t local to the area.
Whatever the case, Alex knew she came from a long line of strong, independent, talented women, and she found inspiration in that knowledge.
Alex looked around, searching for something to fill or fix. It wouldn’t do for her ciocia, her aunt, to see her holding up the wall, twiddling her thumbs. Maybe she should start on the online orders. About ten had come in overnight, and she’d need to pull the orders from the shelf, pack them up, and—
And then everything stopped.
Alex looked around curiously. The lights in the shop went out. The playlist of music stopped playing. The air-conditioning ceased flowing. People were staring at darkened cell phones. Cars stopped in the middle of the road and the world—or Bellamy Bay at least—was suddenly silent.
From across the room, Minka found her cousin. Eyes wide, she telepathed, What’s going on?
I don’t know, Alex responded. She raced to the front door and then stumbled as a wave of dizziness encompassed her. She stood where she was, trying to blink away the fuzzy feeling. It was a heavy oppressive feeling that dulled her senses while also making her feel nauseous and like if she walked, she might
tumble to the ground. Trying to find her bearings, she grabbed onto the door, flung it open, and stepped out on Main Street, blinking into the bright sunlight.
Pushing back the urge to vomit, she looked up and down the street, seeing nothing amiss. Everything seemed fine, but something was seriously wrong in Bellamy Bay.
Chapter Two
The nausea was gone, but Alex’s head still ached.
She clutched at her temples, wondering where the pain had come from. She had never been one for migraines. Then she remembered that she could heal herself, that she could make headaches go away with a few uttered words and intent. Leaning against the brick wall of the shop, she spoke words of healing to herself until the pain and dizziness subsided.
But Alex wasn’t the only one who was in need of healing. Pedestrians everywhere were bent over, holding their heads. A few moments passed, and then they weren’t. The wave of lightheadedness and vertigo that had swept through the town had apparently lifted.
Downtown was eerily quiet. People were stepping out of their cars, appearing slightly dazed and absolutely confused.
And then car horns begin to blare, and engines turned back on. Music spilled onto the streets. One driver, then two, and then all of them returned to their cars. Alex went to the shop. Corrine Baily Rae was singing again, the cool air from the air conditioner filled the shop, and the lights turned on.
“What just happened?” Lidia joined her on the street, her face pinched in concern.
“Not sure.” Alex gazed around her, a feeling of uneasiness settling over her. “But whatever it was, it’s over now.”
“Power outage,” Minka suggested as she joined them, grabbing Alex’s hand and gently squeezing it. “Something with the nuclear power plant in Wilmington?”
“I certainly hope not,” Pepper said, out of breath as she jogged toward them as fast as she could, wearing a light blue day dress and heels. Her bright red hair was pulled up into a topknot, and her fair complexion, covered in freckles, glistened with sweat.
