A Dangerous Deceit in Faerywood Falls

by Blythe Baker

I wanted to make some headway, though, and while I was grateful that I didn’t shift the night before, I really didn’t want to ever again. The feeling was too weird. As freeing as being an animal may have felt initially, being completely helpless had been unsettling.

  Just like with stealing Mrs. Bickford’s ghost speaking power, I felt guilty about stealing Alessa’s. She needed it back, and if I ever wanted to make amends with Dr. Valerio, then I knew that I’d need to start somewhere like that.

  Getting back into his good books would not only make me feel better, but maybe also help me to figure out if the killer was one of his werewolves.

  I didn’t want to push my luck, though. I wanted to do the right thing, more than anything.

  I sat down on the edge of my bed beside Athena, who’d curled up and gone back to sleep. She’d been sleeping a lot since her injury, but the vet said that was good for her, as it would give her body plenty of time to heal.

  I gently reached out and touched her head, scratching behind her ear.

  She lifted her head, her eyes still closed. Going somewhere? she asked, leaning her head toward me so I could reach a particular spot.

  “I’m going to give Alessa her power back,” I said.

  She opened her eyes at that. Did you figure out how?

  I frowned. “Not exactly, no…I still haven’t even figured out how to use it. And this power seems a lot more complicated than the ghost speaking. Something tells me it’s going to be harder to give back. But I’m determined, and I just hope that Alessa will be willing to work with me so she can have it back.”

  Well, I wish you well, Athena said. Just be careful, okay? Oh, and could you maybe pick up some tuna on your way home? That sounds delicious.

  I smirked, rubbing her head affectionately. “Glad to see your appetite is still intact. Yes, I’ll pick some up. No problem.”

  I scratched her again before getting to my feet and heading out to my car.

  The air was warm today, which was pleasant for early fall. It was like summer hadn’t left yet, or wasn’t on the way out at all. It felt more like the middle of July.

  As I drove along, I thought about Athena and her injury, about my walk around the lake with Cain, and about all of the murders that have been taking place in such a small town.

  There was a lot about this magic stuff that I just didn’t understand. I understood that I was a faery, but aside from that, I didn’t know much. I didn’t even understand fully what it meant to be a faery. As far as things I’d learned, I had nothing. Less than nothing.

  Not for the first time, I wished more than anything that I had taken that spell book home that I’d found at the antique shop. Instead of keeping it on the shelf, waiting for someone else to find it, I could have had it safe and secure. Maybe I would have learned more, and maybe I’d understand my heritage better.

  That was all hypothetical, though, since Silvia Griffin, the spell weaver, had stolen it and hidden it away.

  With Silvia dead, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get that book back, but I hoped some naïve person would bring another book like it to sell at the antique shop. I knew how farfetched that hope was, but it was all I had right now.

  I wondered if Bliss would be able to get me into the spell weaver’s guild. I wondered if I’d be able to go before the council of eleven and pretend my magical abilities were nothing more than late blooming weaver’s talents.

  I didn’t know if faery magic was different than spell weaver magic.

  It must have been, or Bliss would’ve definitely offered that, right?

  Faerywood Falls was quiet that day. I wasn’t unhappy about it, because it made my morning drive much more pleasant. The stores in downtown were bustling with their usual customers, and the diner beside the antique shop had a full parking lot. The idea of having pancakes with rich maple syrup was enough to make my mouth water, and I told myself that I’d stop and get myself some when I was done visiting Alessa.

  A part of me hoped Dr. Valerio wasn’t home. I didn’t want him to think that I was coming just for him. I never minded seeing him, but I didn’t want him to think I was only coming to see Alessa to please him.

  I hoped she was home, too. I practiced what I wanted to say over and over as I got closer to their house. I knew she’d probably react poorly when she saw me, and I didn’t want her to slam the door in my face or anything.

  I pulled into the driveway, and my heart was beating fast. My stomach was twisted in uncomfortable knots, and my chest was tight with anxiety.

  I was frustrated that I had to do this in the first place, but I knew it was the right thing, in the end. I didn’t want this ability to shift into an animal, and it wasn’t mine to take anyway. I hoped she understood that I never meant to upset her, and there was no maliciousness involved.

  I didn’t know if she’d believe me, but I had to try.

  I stared up at the house, and fear washed over me in a more potent wave.

  I’d really offended Dr. Valerio the last time I’d been here. He was such a kind man, and I hadn’t ever seen him that upset.

  Oh, stop acting like you know him so well…I scolded myself. You didn’t even know that he had a son.

  Annoyance prickled against the fear, diluting it somewhat.

  Had he been flirting with me when he’d been married the whole time? Was the boy’s mother even in the picture?

  I thought about Alessa’s teasing when we’d first met. She’d been the one who told me that he liked me, and talked about me often.

  I didn’t know what to believe, and my affections for Dr. Valerio were definitely in question as of now.

  I opened my door and stepped outside. Again, I asked myself…should I have called first? Should I have told Alessa I was coming? Would she even have told me to come if I had?

  It didn’t matter. I needed to talk to her, regardless of how she felt about it. I’d made up my mind.

  The sky had started to cloud over, and the temperature had dropped. I frowned up at the puffy masses in the vast blue expanse. I’d been enjoying the warmth after a few days of cooler weather.

  The front door loomed ahead of me, and my brain was giving me every possible excuse to leave, telling me that there was no reason why I had to be here, and that I could always come back later.

  But I was here. And I was going to set this right.

  I was just walking up the front steps, wondering what in the world I was going to say if one of the younger wolves answered the door and wouldn’t let me in, when I heard footsteps behind me.

  I turned, and my stomach dropped.

  A balding man was standing there on the path, with an unholstered handgun pointed at me.

  My blood turned to ice, and my knees were suddenly like jelly.

  The man’s pale green eyes narrowed as he stared at me. “I thought you might come back…”

  I threw my hands up in the air, tripping slightly as I tried to walk up the stairs closer to the door. If I could just get to the door, make some noise, something –

  My brain registered the overalls he was wearing, and the work boots, and the toolbelt.

  “Wait…” I said. “You’re one of them. You’re the gardener I saw talking with Gian the other day, working around the house – ”

  “You’ve been snooping around too much for comfort,” the man said in a deep, raspy sort of voice.

  “I don’t – ” I said.

  “Save it,” he said, nodding his head to the side. “Now come with me…”

  I was lost for words. I didn’t think there was anything I could say that would save me in this situation.

  He was the one with the gun, after all.

  13

  Panic was all I was aware of for some time. As soon as I’d walked in front of the gardener, he’d wrapped a blindfold over my eyes, and a gag over my mouth. He tied my hands behind my back, too. I screamed and screamed against it, but realized quickly that all I was doing was wearing myself out.

  Whatever was going to happ
en, I knew that I was probably going to need my strength.

  My senses were in overdrive. I couldn’t speak or see, but I could definitely hear and feel everything around me.

  I was shoved into the back of a car. It wasn’t a trunk, since daylight peeked in underneath the blindfold. I tried scraping my face against the floor to remove the blindfold, but it was tied too tightly. As was my gag.

  I tried pulling my arms underneath my legs to bring them back to the front of myself, but my arm screamed in pain; it probably wasn’t the best idea to dislocate my shoulder.

  I was thrashing around in the back of the car, my head slamming against the sides.

  The gardener was making no sounds from the front. The engine hummed, and the road passed along underneath us.

  I had no idea where we were going, but I tried to keep track of how many rights and lefts we took.

  I realized halfway through that it wouldn’t matter unless I knew what direction I was facing in the first place. And I couldn’t guarantee that I knew that, either.

  When the car came to a stop, my every nerve ending felt like it was on fire as I waited. I’d hoped to figure out how to escape while he took me wherever we were going, but in reality, it wasn’t all that far. While it had felt like an eternity while I was in the car, it went by too fast, and I was faced with the reality that this man that had kidnapped me was ready to kill me.

  The trunk of the car opened, and the vulnerability I felt was sky high. I was cowering there, unable to protect myself, unable to even look into the face of the man that was going to hurt me.

  “You know…I don’t even know what he sees in you,” the gardener mumbled as he stared down at me. “Magic talents or not, you’re nothing special to look at.”

  If he was trying to anger me, it wasn’t working. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of getting a rise out of me.

  He reached in and grabbed hold of my arms.

  I shrieked, but the sound was muffled by the gag.

  He hoisted me easily out of the car and onto my feet. His grip, like iron, clenched onto me, ensuring I didn’t try to make a run for it while he closed the back of his car.

  “You’re a trouble maker, aren’t you?” he asked. “Ain’t that the truth? You go poking around our house, our lives…well, you’re not gonna like what you find, let me tell you. You are not going to like what you find…”

  He yanked me forward, and started dragging me away from the car.

  I tried to force myself to calm down. Despite the pain in my arm from his vice-like fingers, I made myself focus on other things I could sense.

  I heard water. Waves. I heard wind, and felt it against my burning cheeks. I could smell wet earth, damp under my feet.

  “I don’t know if we were ever properly introduced,” the gardener said. “Not that it matters to you at all, but I’m Oscar Marino. I’d like to think I’m a nice guy. I’m a respected member of the lycanthrope pack, and I do my best to keep my nose clean. I’m fiercely protective of my pack, even to a fault. I don’t like it when anyone…anyone…poses a threat to my pack.”

  Is that what he thought I was? A threat?

  My foot caught against something wooden, and I nearly stumbled over myself.

  Oscar caught me, but he wasn’t gentle about it.

  I could still hear the water beneath me, lapping up against something.

  “So when I start hearing from people in my pack that you’ve been showing up and causing havoc, it makes me a little concerned,” he said. “You’re making accusations about the wolves, making everyone unhappy and tense. I’ve never seen some of the younger wolves this unsettled…with all this talk of murder being thrown around…”

  He stopped me, and the wind whipped at my face stronger than it had before.

  The blindfold around my eyes loosened, as did the one around my mouth.

  I opened my mouth to scream at the exact moment that he pointed his gun at me.

  “You scream, I end you right here,” he said.

  The steadiness in his eyes told me that was no bluff.

  I looked around, keeping my mouth shut. We were standing at the end of a dock at the lake. It was on the opposite shore from where my cabin was; I couldn’t see it in the distance. There were no houses around, and all the cabins around the lake were empty.

  Not even Mrs. Bickford would hear me if I screamed.

  “So you brought me out here because I was asking questions?” I asked, turning my attention back to him.

  All things considered, Oscar really didn’t look like the sort of man who would kill someone. He looked like the sort of man who was always reliable, with a kind face and an air of trustworthiness.

  He shook his head, never lowering the gun in his hand. “No,” he said. “I brought you here because of what you’d find out if you kept coming around asking questions.”

  I blinked at him. “That…doesn’t make any sense.”

  I jumped as the gun went off, nearly bursting my ear drums.

  My heart thundered against my ribs, my vision tunneling as I stared down at the smoking barrel.

  Oscar hadn’t flinched. “Don’t try me,” he said. “I missed on purpose that time. I won’t do the same with the next bullet.”

  My breathing was tight and fast as I stared at him. “Why delay it? Why don’t you just kill me now?”

  He shook his head. “Call it my confession time, but someone has to know the truth. And it might as well be you…since you were going to find it all out anyway.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “You were awfully close…” he said. “If you’d gotten the chance to talk to Gian any more…”

  “You mean, it wasn’t Gian?” I asked. “Are we talking about who killed the hunter in the forest?”

  “Of course it wasn’t Gian,” Oscar said, his brow furrowing into one, hard, angry line. “That boy doesn’t have the courage to kill a man, no matter how evil the man is.”

  My heart skipped. Evil?

  I thought of Sheriff Garland’s words, about finding Margaret Atwell’s stolen goods in the dead hunter’s pockets. At the very least, he hadn’t been an honorable sort of guy, but to go so far as to call him evil?

  My circumstances were bad, but if I could keep Oscar talking, then maybe, like I had with Silvia, maybe I could figure a way out of this. I couldn’t take his shifting power, since I already had Alessa’s. Maybe I’d be able to shift into a fox and escape.

  Sudden self-loathing filled me. Why hadn’t I thought of that while trapped in the back of his car? I could have taken off as soon as he’d opened the door, free of the bonds he’d placed on me.

  I was such an idiot. And now, here he was, staring at me. There was no way I’d be able to get away now.

  And that was even if I were able to find the magic within me to shift in the first place.

  Okay, Marianne. Keep him talking. You’re not dead yet. We can still figure this out, I told myself.

  Maybe I’d be able to appeal to his sensibilities. Maybe if I sympathized with him, I could lull him into security, and then knock the gun from his hand.

  That was risky.

  And singing the spell song wouldn’t work, either. It would take some time for that to take effect, and if he had any experience at all with spell singers, or even with spell weavers in general, then he’d know what I was doing as soon as I started.

  Just talk to him, I told myself. Now!

  “So…who was so evil?” I asked.

  Oscar let out a single, hollow snort of laughter. “You wouldn’t understand…” he said. “You wouldn’t understand any of it, because you aren’t part of the pack.”

  “I might not be part of the pack, but I know a thing or two about evil people,” I said. “I’ve had to deal with a few of them since I’ve moved to Faerywood Falls.”

  Oscar’s head tilted slightly. “Dr. Valerio seems to think that something is stirring around here…and that your return to your home is what’s ca
using it.”

  I almost swallowed my tongue. Did that mean that Dr. Valerio had put the pieces together? Had he figured out who…or what…I was?

  Oscar regarded me for a long, hard minute. “Well, since you seem to know so much about the story anyways, I guess it won’t matter if I justify why I did what I did.”

  He shifted his weight on his feet, never taking his eyes from mine.

  “Hunting has been a despised sport among my pack for as long as I can remember,” Oscar said. “Why do they insist on coming here when there are so many other places to hunt in the world that aren’t anywhere near werewolves? Going after bears? Go ahead. Deer? That’s great, just leave enough for us, too. But it wasn’t until these hunters started picking up on the unrest in the woods that they began taking aim at werewolves,” he said.

  He gritted his teeth together, and his eyes were glassy for a brief moment as if he relived something painful.

  “They killed three of our own within just a few weeks,” Oscar said, and I thought I detected the faintest tremor in his voice. “Back to back. I was witness to two of them. We were out on patrol in the early hours just before dawn, and a group of hunters found us. We ran, not wanting to interfere, and they chased after us.”

  His jaw was clenched, and high spots of angry color appeared on his cheeks. A vein pulsed in his temple. “They were laughing as they took shots at us. It wasn’t humane. It was sadistic. They wanted to kill just to kill.” His eyes revealed a deep pain that caught me off guard. “And kill they did. We managed to chase the hunters off when we started to fight back, but it was too late. Two of ours were already gone.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that…” I said earnestly.

  This man was channeling his hateful anger into the wrong place, but it was clear that he was just trying to avenge the deaths of his friends. His pack. No wonder he thought hunters were evil.

  “That was it. Something within me snapped. I was tired of these hunters just shooting at us, hurting us, dwindling our numbers. I was tired of having to go home and tell other lycanthropes’ families, their children, that they’d been hurt or killed by just going out on patrol. Faerywood Falls is supposed to be a safe place for the Gifted, and yet, every werewolf in our pack is terrified for their lives,” he said.