by Amy Boyles
Rufus stopped. Over his shoulder he answered, “By asking, of course.”
“Asking what? I won’t do black magic, Rufus, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I don’t do that anymore. Have you not explained this to him?” he directed to me.
“I have, but Axel only remembers the bad you.”
“Of course he does,” Rufus said. “Wolf, let me explain a few things. I stopped doing dark magic ages ago. I’ve also got a girlfriend, and she’s great, so I no longer want Pepper, either.”
Axel’s brows shot to the ceiling. “Maybe that’s why I dislike you so much.”
“Can’t remember the girl, but you can recall your feelings for me?”
Axel didn’t answer. My heart fluttered as shame in the form of heat flared up my neck and licked my cheeks.
Rufus’s gaze darted from Axel to me. “If that’s the case, then I suggest we get started. You may not have feelings for her,” he added, “but I can assure you that Pepper has real feelings for you, Axel. Come on. Let’s go.”
“What are we going to do?” I asked.
Rufus stopped in a dark doorway. He tapped his fingers against the frame. “We’re going to ask the souls of the dead what the person in town is looking for. But I already know the answer to that. My guess is, Betty does as well, only she doesn’t want to admit it.”
I blanched. “Souls of the dead?”
He nodded. “Don’t worry,” he directed to Axel, “it’s not black magic. It’s much more gray.”
My gaze cut to Axel. His eyes narrowed. “Let’s just get on with it.”
Rufus’s mouth curled into a sly smile. “As you wish.”
As we walked, Rufus’s silk smoking jacket-like robe, circa 1950, flapped at his feet. Rufus entered a room and flipped on a harsh overhead light.
“Uh, that’s not exactly the mood we’re going for, is it?” He clapped his hands. The harsh light vanished, and a softer, more amber glow took its place.
“Much better.”
Rufus shot us a smile. “Watch where you step. I haven’t gotten everything put away completely yet.”
Rufus’s magic room, because that’s the only thing it could have been, was made of gray and tan slate stone. The floor was stone as well, and a cauldron sat in the very center.
Boxes lined the walls. Rufus clucked his tongue. “Now, where did I put the cauldron that holds the souls of the dead?”
My jaw dropped. “You mean it’s in one of those boxes?”
He nodded. “Most definitely. I’ve only been here a couple of months, but as you can imagine, I haven’t had a reason to call on the souls since I’ve moved here.”
“Shocking,” Axel muttered.
I elbowed his ribs and shot him a look that said, Rufus is trying to help us.
He shot me one right back that said, I’m still allowed to make comments that suggest I don’t trust him.
I rolled my eyes. “Can I help you look?” I asked Rufus.
He opened a box and rummaged through the contents before settling it in pile beside the adjoining wall. “No, the cauldron can be finicky about who touches it. Besides, do you really want to handle something with all those souls? Sometimes, around new people, the souls try to attach themselves.”
The hairs on the back of my neck rose high and straight. “I’m sorry? They attach themselves?”
Rufus buried his nose in another box. “Yes. They like to try to possess new people. It can be annoying.”
I started to back away. “Should I be worried? Should both of us be worried?”
Rufus dumped that box atop the other one he’d discarded. “What? No. As long as you don’t touch it, you should be fine. It’s only when some unsuspecting person starts handling it that we have problems. But as long as I tell them the rules up front, we’re usually fine. Ah, here you are. Buried in a box labeled odds and ends. Of course you were.”
Rufus brandished what I would have referred to as a small cast-iron pot rather than a cauldron. It was about six inches long and three inches deep. Big enough to scramble a couple of eggs in.
Rufus smiled. “From the skepticism on your faces, I see you don’t believe what it holds, but hang on.”
Rufus dropped the pot in the center of the stone floor. “Come closer, but like I said, don’t touch it.”
“Don’t worry,” Axel muttered.
Rufus took a knife from a shelf. “Now to wake them up.”
I cringed as Rufus slid the blade over the tip of his finger. A single drop of blood splashed into the empty cauldron.
I watched, expecting some dramatic hiss or spitting from the empty bowl, but nothing happened.
I shot a confused glance to Axel, who nodded at Rufus. “Well?”
Rufus released an embarrassed chuckle. “Sometimes it takes a little coaxing.” He ran his hand over his dark hair and kicked the pot. “Wake up. Don’t make me look like I was lying to these people, please.”
A few seconds later a single finger of smoke floated up from the bowl. The sound of yawning came next, and a skeletal, ghostly hand curled out of the bowl and gripped the side.
“And I was having such a nice dream too.”
A woman’s face popped up from the bowl. I nearly screamed, but I managed to bite my tongue.
She had a round face, two bright, ghostly white eyes and curly hair.
“Who’s this pretty?” she said.
Flattered, I said, “My name’s Pepper.”
“I wasn’t talking about you, skinny girl,” she snorted. “I meant the werewolf over there.”
“I just call him Wolf,” Rufus said.
The ghostly figure licked her lips. “Oh, I like that name. Strong.”
I nearly vomited.
“I want to see,” said another feminine voice from the pot. “Move over, sister. Your head is too big.”
“It can get a slightly competitive in there,” Rufus said to me.
“So I hear,” I murmured.
The first ghost disappeared, and a slimmer face appeared. This face had the same white eyes, but her hair was short and stringy.
She smacked her lips. “My, my. A tasty treat you’ve brought us this time, Rufus. I’ll have dreams for decades about him.”
“Now, now, ladies,” Rufus scolded. “Be nice to our guests. I don’t want you doing what you did last time.”
“It wasn’t me who did it,” the spirit answered. “It was Rue.”
“Who said my name?” asked a third voice. “Who said it?”
“It was your sister, Blue,” the face said. “Sue was up first.”
So Sue was the plump one, Blue was the skinny one and Rue was the third one.
“We’re talking about a werewolf that Rufus has brought us. Rufus promised we could keep him awhile.”
“I did not,” Rufus said firmly. “We’ve come because we have questions.”
“Let me see,” came Rue’s scratchy voice. “Blue, move out of the way.”
Blue scoffed. “Rue always has to be the boss. Hold on.”
“Now,” Rue demanded.
And just like that, Blue disappeared and the third face appeared. Rue was much more skeletal than the other two. Her flesh and eyes were completely gone.
I shivered as her jaw unhinged and she spoke.
“He is a good-looking one, but we’re only answering one question tonight, Rufus. If you want more questions, the man will have to come back.”
Her face tipped toward me. “Without the woman here. She ruins it for us.”
I scoffed. “Nice way to treat a fellow female.”
Blue cackled. “Dear, we don’t have to treat you any particular way. We treat you as we want, that is all. Just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean we have to be more kind to you than we would someone else. And since we don’t have to, we won’t.”
“That’s good to know,” I murmured.
Rue opened her eye sockets wide at Rufus. “Now, Rufus. Tell us why you’ve called us.”
&n
bsp; Rufus clasped his hands together. “We’re searching for information.”
Rue smacked her jaws. “Tell us what you’re searching for. We have the answers.”
Chapter 20
“We all have to be there for the question.” Sue’s voice came from the pit of the cauldron. “Move over, Rue.”
“I will if you don’t take up all the room,” Rue said with bite.
“I can’t help that I’m a bit plump,” Sue said. “I’m big-boned.”
I swear if Rue had eyes, she would have rolled them.
Sue’s head rose into view like orange sherbet sliding up a Push-up cylinder. “See? There’s room,” she said proudly.
“We still have to get Blue up here,” Rue said.
“Make way.” Blue’s muffled voice rose from the bowl. “I have to be up, too.”
Rufus whispered to me, “This could take until morning. Them situating themselves.”
“Let’s hope not,” Axel murmured.
“Yeah, if Betty discovers I sneaked out, then I’m in trouble.”
An amused smile lit on Rufus’s face. “Oh? Been acting up, have you, Pepper?”
I shot him a scorching look. “It’s none of your business.”
He raised his palms in surrender. “So it’s not.”
From the cauldron Blue, Rue and Sue pushed and shoved one another, fighting. As Rufus hinted at, it did take some time for the three to slot into the cauldron in such a way that their heads each had space to see.
“There,” said Blue. “Finally.”
“Move over, Sue,” Rue said. “Your hair is poking me in the eyes.”
“You don’t have eyes,” Sue spat. “You’ve only got sockets left.”
“And I’ll make sure that’s all you have if you don’t shove over,” Rue added.
Sue whimpered before adjusting her hair to move it out of the way.
“Now,” Rue, the obvious boss of the sisters, said. “I believe we’re ready for this question.”
Axel moved to me. He placed his mouth to my ear. “Do we ask what the person wants?”
“Or where the mirror is?” I said.
He grunted out a no.
This was no easy choice. We needed the mirror, but we also had to know what the culprit wanted from Magnolia Cove. If we knew what they wanted, then we would probably find the mirror, right?
It made sense. One piece of information would help the other to surface.
“What they want,” I said.
Axel nodded. “I agree.” He lifted his chin to Rufus. “We’re still asking the same question.”
Rufus spoke to the sisters. “Are you ready to hear our question?”
“We don’t want to hear it from you,” Rue said.
“Let the pretty one talk,” Sue said, her plump curls circling her face.
“Him’s the one we want to speak with,” Blue added.
Rufus sighed. “Of course he is. All the women want him.”
Rufus wasn’t kidding. If he only knew what I’d had to endure the past few days, he’d understand exactly how rich that comment was.
Rufus gestured for Axel to talk to the heads. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Axel stepped forward. His shoulders were pinned back and his chin high. He opened his mouth to speak but then turned back to look at me.
“I need her beside me,” he said.
The three heads scoffed in unison.
“But we only wants to see you,” Blue said, disappointment thick in her voice.
“She ruins it,” Sue added.
“The girl is not part of the deal,” Rue added.
“Then I leave,” Axel said.
He turned to go. I didn’t know if this was a bluff or not. We needed the information the spirits offered.
“Axel,” I murmured.
“I will not talk to them unless they speak with you, too. We’re in this together.”
I hiked a brow as I studied him. What had changed? Had Axel realized that I loved him with all my heart? Had finding me with Blake done more than simply making him angry?
“I’ve been a fool,” Axel whispered. “My feelings for you have been shielded from me. They still are, that hasn’t changed, but I was to marry you. Which meant I loved you more than anything, which also means that no matter what, you need to be treated as such. So you stand beside me as I stand beside you.”
These past few days I’d felt so disjointed from him. I floated on a raft in the ocean, alone. I’d acted like it, too. Before, I would’ve called Axel and told him I was going off to search for the Memory Mirror, but I hadn’t and I didn’t because I knew he didn’t feel about me the way I craved for him to.
The way he was supposed to. In the pocket of his heart that was supposed to be reserved for me, only emptiness lay there.
He’d told me so himself. But for him to now say he wanted me by his side, it made my heart open to him, to allow myself to be hurt by Axel all over again.
That’s okay. That’s what love was, right? Allowing yourself to be hurt by someone you love and trust?
Well, I loved Axel as much now as I did before. Nothing in my heart had changed, but it seemed something in him had.
I took the hand he offered. “Ladies,” he said over his shoulder, “have you changed your minds?”
“If the only way to talk to you is with her around, I guess we’ll have to accept,” Rue grumbled. “But hurry. We don’t like to look at her, so be quick about your question.”
“And we might not even have an answer,” Sue added.
“Oh, you’ll have an answer,” Axel said.
“They will,” Rufus promised. “They always do.”
Axel tugged me back toward the cauldron. “Now, ladies. You’re only answering one question, is that right?”
“That’s right,” Blue said. Her curls swirled around her face. “So take your time asking.”
“There’s someone in Magnolia Cove. They’ve done things—stolen my memory and broken into our Vault. They want something, but we don’t yet know what it is.”
“And that’s what you’re asking?” Rue said.
“You must ask a specific question,” Blue said.
“That’s not specific enough,” Sue added. “Are you asking for your memory back? We can’t do that.”
“I know you can’t,” Axel said. “There is something that can, but it’s been stolen.”
“The Memory Mirror.” Rue leaned out of the bowl, her skeletal body sending a shiver down my spine. “It’s gone, you say?”
“Yes, but that isn’t what I want.”
“Hmmm,” Rue said. “You think that if you can find out what the person who started this business wants, you’ll have the answers to everything else.”
A thousand questions popped into my brain. Would it be smarter to simply ask who had stolen Axel’s memory? Isn’t that what we needed to know.
“Axel.” I squeezed his bicep. “Ask who did this to you. If we know that, then we don’t need to know anything else. That will be enough. We already think that’s the person who’s behind everything anyway. If we know who stole your memory, we can get it back.”
Turbulence filled his blue eyes. “But what about what they want?”
I shook my head. “I don’t care about what they want. I do, but I care more about you. If that’s the same person who broke into the Vault, they’ll be arrested. Garrick will build a case against them. Don’t you see? That’s the most important thing.”
His eyes narrowed. “Pepper, we will get my memory back. But if we don’t know what they want, how can we protect it?”
“Nothing is more important than your memory,” I pleaded. “Surely you must see that.”
“There is something more important.”
I frowned. No there wasn’t. Not to me. “What?”
“You,” he said quietly. “You’re powerful. What if that person is trying to get to you? With me out of the way, with my memory and love for you gone, that creates a wedge. With tha
t wedge in place, they may think I won’t fight hard enough for you. Or that you won’t seek out my help if something happens.”
I rocked back on my heels. “That isn’t the answer I expected you to say.”
He touched my chin. “I know I love you, somewhere in me, and I’m not so stupid to see that though I look like the target, I’m probably not.”
“If you think you care about me, then why not do this? Why not ask them for that?”
Axel slid his hand to my neck and pulled me close until our foreheads touched. My heart fluttered. This was the closest I’d felt to him in days.
“Because if we know what they want, we can also set a trap, kill two birds with one stone.”
“And what if things go wrong?”
“They won’t,” he said. “They will not go wrong. I’ll be by your side and you’ll be by mine. We will stop this. But first we need answers.”
“But why would someone want me and then break into the Vault?”
“Subterfuge,” he answered quietly. “Simple diversion.”
Axel straightened. The spot on my head where we’d touched remained warm, his imprint stamped onto me.
“Ladies,” he said coolly, “I have my question.”
“I want to answer it,” Sue said.
Blue shook out her thin head of hair. “No, me.”
“We’ll all answer,” Rue snapped. Her sisters whimpered in reply. “Ask your question, wizard.”
“My question,” Axel said, “is what does the person who broke into the Vault want? What are they searching for?”
“What does this person want?” Rue asked.
“What was the question?” Sue cupped a hand to her ear. “I didn’t hear it.”
“He said—”
“I didn’t hear, either,” Blue whined. “What was it?”
“If you’ll both be quiet, I’ll tell you,” Rue said.
“Your big head is in the way,” Blue said to Sue. “Move it.”
“I can’t help the size of my head,” Sue snipped. “You’re just jealous you don’t have my curls.”
“I’m not jealous,” Blue said.
“Stop it,” Rue shouted. “Both of you. The question has been asked and received. The man wants to know what the person who broke into the Vault was looking for.”
“Oh, the Vault,” Sue said. “The break-in. Yes, I see it.”
