by Nova Nelson
Roland still observed me from a short distance, waiting for me to make my move.
I sighed and slipped off my boots and my socks. “I guess I have to sleep sometime.”
And if I couldn’t help it, I might as well enjoy it …
Chapter Twelve
It was clear when I woke up the next morning that the love spell was growing steadily more intense. I could hardly focus on anything at work the next day, to the point where Eva suggested I take a long lunch break and let her handle my tables.
I refused the offer, of course, because the last thing I needed was idle time to let my mind wander. I knew exactly where it would go, and I’d spent all night there and that was plenty. Too much, probably.
Or not enough …?
But after the lunch rush, I decided Eva had a point. There was no reason why I should hang around when I wasn’t especially useful. So, I left work right after the lunch rush. Between Eva and Cassandra, they could handle the place without a manager until Jane showed up in a few hours.
Speaking of Jane, there was one bit of unfinished business that had been nagging at me: I still hadn’t spoken with Ansel.
Had Jane spoken with him the night before about what I’d told her? I doubted it, not only because she’d seemed to forget everything I’d said the moment she’d set eyes right back on Stu, but also because telling him might invite a lengthy conversation about her history with the town’s deputy, and I knew firsthand how long one could put off conversations of that uncomfortable variety.
Grim opted to stay behind and help clean the dishes as they were bussed, making sure the stickier bits were licked clean from the plates before they were washed. That was fine by me, since I knew he would complain the entire walk from Medium Rare to Whirligig’s Garden Center, where I was heading.
I passed beneath the overgrown archway and paused, scanning the expansive gardens for Ansel. No sign of him, so I walked further along the path until I reached the store. Thaddeus, the owner of the gardens, usually spent his days indoors. That always struck me as odd, considering he was a druid. According to Oliver, druids were an ancient class of magic masters, predating witches, who drew their power from every natural element. The way Oliver had described it sounded like a blend of a witch and a pixie, and when I’d suggested that to him, he didn’t immediately shoot it down, so I went with it. Presumably, Thaddeus would know where Ansel was and could point me to that section of the expansive property.
I’d never ventured inside the shop, though I’d visited the garden center a handful of times. I pushed open the door and took a step inside.
The shop was small with large, dusty windows lining each wall and shelves packed with crates of seeds and soil running long ways from the door. A tiny wooden counter was near the far end, and behind it stood Thaddeus, his gray beard flowing down his front to below the level of the countertop. Tiny pink and yellow flowers dotted his facial hair, and I wondered briefly whether he placed those there or they actually grew from him.
I didn’t get to wonder long, though, because my attention shifted when I realized who it was standing in front of the counter with her back to me drawing Thaddeus’s unabashed gaze.
He said something I couldn’t hear, and she laughed expressively and leaned across the counter, running a hand down his arm as she continued giggling.
There was just no way Thaddeus was that funny.
“Sorry to interrupt,” I said.
Slowly, Mayor Esperia turned to face me, her cheeks flushed. The wide smile faded from her face immediately.
“Nora, what a surprise. Finally giving Ruby’s ghastly garden a friendly makeover?”
“No,” I said. “I’m here on other business, but actually, do you have a moment to talk privately?”
“Of course.” She glanced back at Thaddeus. “Just a moment, Tad, and then I want to hear the rest of that story.”
He winked at her and twirled his beard, his gaze frolicking up and down her as she turned to follow me outside.
Before I could say a word, she jumped in with, “I know what you’re going to say, and it’s really not necessary. Yes, Tanner was rude to me the other night at Stews and Brews, but I understand that there’s no love lost between the High Council and the Sheriff’s Department. It’s always been that way and will continue to be so for as long as Gabby Bloom pushes for more money allocated to her department and refuses us the proper oversight.”
“That’s not what I wanted to talk about,” I said. “And, for the record, I don’t think Tanner owes you an apology. What I want to know is if you and Thaddeus Whirligig have a history.”
She opened her eyes wide. “That’s none of your business.”
“Ah yes, but see, it is. Because if you still had it bad for him and wanted to get back together, it might prove motive for you casting a love spell over Eastwind in hopes of winning him back and covering your tracks. And between you and the High Priestess, I have a feeling you could come up with a pretty powerful spell, or coerce someone else to do it for you.”
The mayor tilted her head to the side. “A love spell? What in the blaze are you talking about? Has someone cast a love spell over Eastwind?” She puffed up her chest. “That’s highly illegal. If that’s the case, Gabby Bloom has fallen asleep on the job yet again, because this falls squarely under her jurisdiction, yet here you are, handling it with that vigilante justice you seem to enjoy so much.”
“No, don’t blame this on Sheriff Bloom. The only reason I know about it is that spirits were involved and so people came to me. I’m only just now realizing how big this is and I haven’t had a chance to tell the sheriff. My point is this: How do I know you aren’t the one behind it?”
“Because it’s illegal!” she said. “And besides, what Tad and I have rediscovered in each other the last couple days isn’t some hollow product of a spell. It’s real. I can feel it, so can he. Maybe others in town are under a spell, but the timing is just a coincidence insofar as it affects us.”
I rolled my eyes. This again. “You’re telling me you’re the exception, is that it?”
She nodded.
“Despite the uncanny timing of the spell and when you and Thaddeus fell back into each other’s arms, you really believe that yours is real and everyone else’s is fake?”
“Yes, I’m glad you’re getting it. And I’m glad you told me about this, Nora. A spell this powerful is beyond the capabilities of any witches known within the Coven.”
“Could it be Tad?” I asked the question as soon as the possibility occurred to me. I didn’t remember seeing druids on the list at the library, but I certainly didn’t remember everything on that list.
She blew a raspberry and waved that away. “Not a chance. For one, Tad isn’t manipulative. Also, his powers are really only good for growing things. A love spell is far outside his capabilities. No, it would take something much more powerful than a witch or druid to pull it off …” A satisfied grin bloomed on her face. “And speaking of coincidental timing, I believe I might know who you should be speaking with.”
“No, no, no,” I said, trying to nip it in the bud. “I have no reason to believe she did it.”
“Then you’re a fool,” snapped the mayor. “A genie enters our realm at the same time that a wide-spread love spell takes hold, and you have no reason to believe it was her? Could it be that your fear of appearing prejudiced is blinding you to the truth?”
“Could it be that your fear of losing power is blinding you to the truth?” I snapped back.
I knew it was a mistake the minute I’d said it.
Her top lip curled in a snarl and she lifted her chin as she said, “I’m not afraid of losing power. I’m afraid for those who don’t have it, those witches with a target on their back for being born as they are. Mark my words, Nora. Someday you’ll be targeted by some savage beast simply because you’re a witch, and you’ll wish you had the protections I’m trying to pass for you and all our kind. I hope that day never comes, but if I fe
ar one thing, it’s that it will, that the day will come for each witch in Eastwind when the rest of the town turns on him or her and our kind will be wiped out of existence.”
Whoa. I’d assumed the mayor’s rhetoric was just a way for her to stir up chaos and exploit that for more power, but now it seemed entirely possible that she had been drinking her own Kool-Aid. She seemed to legitimately believe that everything non-witch was a threat to everything witch.
Except for Thaddeus, obviously.
I decided to back off a bit. “Whatever you say.”
“Yes,” she said brusquely. “It is whatever I say. And what I say is that Liberty’s harlot has to go. I’ll speak with him at the next High Council meeting and hope he will listen to sense so we don’t have to use force.”
“Good luck with that,” I said, brushing past her and back into the store. I needed to warn Liberty before that happened and give him a heads up that the mayor had it out for him, but before that, I still needed to find Ansel.
“Last I saw him, he was out in the daisies,” said Thaddeus.
The mayor passed me as I left the building again, and I decidedly ignored her as I did so, which wasn’t hard, since her eyes locked onto her dearest Tad like a homing beacon.
I was fairly sure I’d passed the daisies on my walk in, but I backtracked just to make sure. This time, paying extra attention to that particular section, I found him.
He was almost hidden, lying on his stomach with his chin propped up on one fist. I only managed to spot him because he was kicking his legs in the air, bending them at the knee, one then the other. It was the movement that caught my eye.
“Ansel?” I said, walking over. He didn’t look up. His attention was squarely on a red daisy he pinched delicately between his fingers.
Oh, for fang’s sake.
He continued kicking his legs slowly.
“Ansel,” I said more pointedly when I was a few feet away.
“Huh?” He looked up and blinked rapidly. “Oh, hi, Nora.”
“Am I interrupting?” I said, slipping my hands into my back pockets and staring down at the bulky werebear.
He gazed at the daisy again, leaning his head to the side, then holding the flower up into the sunlight. “No. Not really.”
“Dare I ask what you’re doing?”
He sighed. “These are her favorite flowers.”
I groaned. “Oh, Ansel. Please, for the love of the moon, knock it off.”
He rolled onto his side and shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked at me. “I can’t, Nora. I have a second chance, one I never thought I’d have. And I just have to sit around while she’s anchored in your parlor. I stopped by to see her, but Ruby wouldn’t let me in. She even cast a shielding spell so I couldn’t cross the threshold.” His voice cracked. “I don’t want to lose her again. What if she goes back to him?” He lifted the daisy to his nose and inhaled the scent, moaning. “The smell reminds me of her.”
I’m proud to say I refrained from the obvious “pushing up daisies” joke. Mostly, because I wasn’t sure they used that phrase here.
“If it’s any consolation, I doubt Lucent is in the running to steal your girl again, since he’s in Ironhelm,” I added.
“Lucent?” said Ansel. “He didn’t steal Heather from me.”
“He … What? Who did?”
“Darius.”
“Darius Pine?” I spat. “As in your best friend in the whole world, Darius Pine?”
“Yeah,” he said sharply. “And then she got tired of taking slack from her family for dating werebears and decided to date her kind, instead. Only, she went for Lucent to throw the expectations back in the face of her family. If they wanted her to date a werewolf, she would date the last one they wanted to see her with. I think it started as a joke, but then they fell in love and I never got to hold her again …” He began picking petals off the daisy. “She loves me … she loves me not…”
“I’d say you won in the end by dating Jane.”
“Jane?”
“Jane!” I snapped. “Your wife! Oh, come on! You know who Jane is. The beautiful, fiercely loyal, insanely smart and powerful werewolf you married. The woman you took to Wisconsin on your honeymoon!” It was getting dangerously close to being more trouble than it was worth to keep these two together.
He shook his head clear and tossed the half-plucked daisy to the side. “Right. Jane. Of course. I love her.”
“Yes, yes you do.”
“And I don’t hate Darius anymore,” he said.
“No, you love him. Like, maybe too much.”
He nodded. “And Darius doesn’t hate me anymore, right?”
“Why would he hate you? He stole your girlfriend.” Love was really starting to addle his brain, that much was obvious.
“Right. But then I stole his girlfriend later.”
“Back up,” I said, trying to follow along. “He was dating Jane before you two got together?”
“No, no. Not her.”
“Then who?”
A serene smile spread across his lips, and he rolled over onto his back, spreading his arms out wide as he stared up at the October sky. “Fiona,” he breathed.
“Are you kidding me?” I moaned. “Is there anyone who hasn’t hooked up in this town?”
“I miss her,” he said. “I shouldn’t have left her.”
“No, you absolutely should have because it led you to Jane.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I left her for Jane. And then she started dating Bruce, of course none of us knew about that until after he died …”
“Listen,” I said, “I’m going to give you advice that you should take. Someone has cast a love spell over Eastwind that’s stirring up feelings for past loves. I think it’s what brought Heather back. What you’re feeling for her and for—I can’t even believe it—Fiona Sheehan, is not real. What you have with Jane is real. So I’m going to give you the same advice I gave her: do not act on anything you’re feeling right now that doesn’t pertain to your spouse.”
He studied me curiously. “A love spell? That’s what brought back Heather?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“And that’s what brought back Bruce?”
I nodded.
“So wait … Jane is having feelings for past lovers, too?” He sat up quickly.
“Yes, but she hasn’t acted on any of them, so ease up there, big boy.”
He sat in silent contemplation for a moment then said, “That means Bruce and …” His eyes darkened as he growled, “Stu.” He clenched two fistfuls of grass. “I don’t care if he has the law behind him. If he lays a hand on her, I’ll kill him.”
I decided to take the jealousy as a good sign. All the same, I didn’t need Ansel fighting a deputy. “You know about Stu?”
“Of course I do.”
“Jane told you?”
He shook his head. “She didn’t. It happened before she even got together with Bruce. She thought it was secret, but everyone knew. Not sure why it ended, whether it was because of Bruce or something else. But I swear to mother earth that if I find out Manchester is making a move on her—”
“You’ll kill him. Yes, I heard you the first time.”
Ansel scrambled to his feet. “Where is he? Is he at Medium Rare? Is he trying to get with her right now?”
I placed a gentle and cautious hand on him. “Whoa there. You can’t just go marching off to beat up the deputy.”
“Why not?” he said, glaring at me.
“A lot of reasons, actually, but first and foremost, you’re still on the clock.”
The bulging cords of muscle in his neck and shoulders loosened. “Oh, right.”
“Yeah, time to get your head on straight.”
He nodded. “Okay, I’ll finish my shift here, and then I’ll go beat the swirls out of Stu Manchester.”
I opened my mouth to speak but realized I would just be repeating myself.
He wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say. As much a
s I wanted to keep him from making an incredibly dumb decision, I couldn’t play babysitter to all of Eastwind. It just wasn’t feasible.
The only thing I could do was get to the bottom of this spell and hopefully put an end to it. So, that was the plan.
Chapter Thirteen
I told Ansel to be good before I left the garden center and made for the heart of town to have an overdue word with Sheriff Bloom. While the mayor hadn’t spoken much sense, her mention of Sheriff Bloom had triggered an obvious solution, or at least a solid step toward one. Now that this was bigger than just a couple ghosts, it was definitely something I could get law enforcement on, or rather, whatever law enforcement wasn’t currently tripping over itself to ogle Jane Saxon.
The fact that the sheriff was an angel didn’t hurt, either. Did she have old loves in Eastwind? For some reason I doubted it, but maybe that was just my own bias. Gabby seemed out of reach to everyone. I mean, she was an angel for goodness sake! She had the ability to sense guilt in those she spoke with, and that simply couldn’t be conducive to a healthy relationship.
She had other incredible powers, too. I’d seen her fly once, and it was just as cool as you might guess. The rest of her magic, though, was mostly whispered about, which was how you knew she was one powerful creature. The most potentially dangerous creatures in Eastwind seemed to be shrouded in a cloud of mystery, which only made them more powerful if you think about it. When someone doesn’t know exactly what you’re capable of doing, they’re less likely to step on your toes.
I remembered from the list in the library that angels were among the creatures powerful enough to cast a love spell on their own, but I didn’t see her as a possible suspect. Why would she create more problems for herself? And while she was an angel, she wasn’t the type of angel that would be interested in this sort of thing.
From what I’d learned in my studies with Oliver, there were different varieties of angels with different characteristics. As I had already guessed, Gabrielle Bloom was an avenging angel, meaning she was the kind that helped preserve order and justice. But there were also guardian angels, angel guides, fallen angels, cherubim, and so on. Hundreds of types in total, many of whom might be prime candidates for casting a love spell, if they lived in Eastwind. But none of them did.
