Hex at a House Party

by Gretchen Galway

  “But last night—” Warren said.

  “She had a headache and went to bed,” Tierra said. “This morning she went for a walk. She walks the headlands every morning and night. North and back.” After giving us a quelling glance, she escorted Warren inside. The door slammed behind them.

  “She did seem angry at him last night,” I told Darius, risking some of his anger turning on me.

  He shot me a hard look. “Stay here,” he said, striding toward the cliff.

  “Hey,” I called after him. “I don’t work for you!”

  He waved dismissively. “Don’t let anyone leave.”

  I watched him jog down the path that led north along the cliff’s edge. Don’t let them? With what, my nonexistent Protectorate authority? The thick gold rope around my neck? I did have my beads, but the others were seasoned, experienced, powerful witches.

  The door to the carriage house opened. Tierra stood there in a daze. The pit in my stomach opened wider. “Have you seen Phil?” she asked.

  I stepped toward her. “What happened?”

  “We need—Phil. And Zoe.” Her breath was coming too fast. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t leave Warren.”

  I took her wrist and squeezed it. “What happened?”

  “Please, just go get Phil and Zoe.”

  Nothing was going to make me leave until I knew what was going on. “Is there a phone in the cottage? We’ll call.” I stepped through the doorway, pulling her inside with me.

  “Alma? What’s happening?”

  Birdie was just behind me, standing outside the side door to the farmhouse.

  “Have you seen Phil and Zoe?” I called over to her. “Either one?”

  “They’re in here—” Birdie began.

  “Get them, please,” Tierra said. “Tell them to come right away.”

  Birdie nodded quickly and disappeared. I looked around the entryway of the home Crystal and Warren had made for themselves, feeling for death or danger. It was too shielded to measure. To our left, an empty sitting room with panoramic windows overlooked the ocean.

  “Where is he?” I asked. “Why do you want Phil and Zoe?”

  “He found a note,” Tierra said, breaking away from me, shaking her head. “I just— There must be some mistake.”

  She hurried away down a hallway into a huge, modern kitchen all in white and stainless steel. Breaking the trendy sterility, however, was Warren’s artwork. A high shelf lining the ceiling held countless ceramic and papier-mâché sculptures in human, animal, plant, and abstract shapes. The kitchen table centerpiece was a naked woman in white marble with high, full breasts, muscular thighs, and… hiking boots. The profile looked a little like Crystal. I would’ve taken a moment to wonder at what it would be like to have breakfast next to a naked, albeit idealized rendering of myself, but Warren, slumped in a chair, drew my attention.

  Face as white as his hair, he stared at a piece of paper in his hand. His lower lip jutted out, quivering, shiny with spit.

  “She wouldn’t…,” he said, not looking at any of us. “It’s all my fault. I didn’t listen to her.”

  I looked questioningly at Tierra.

  “A suicide note,” she whispered.

  I walked slowly to the table, to Warren and the note, every sense I had on alert. With each step, the impression of Shadow grew more powerful. It was a bitter taste on my tongue, as if something unpleasant had been dug up from a rotting pit and then set on fire. It made the muscles between my shoulder blades tighten, preparing for a sudden, silent attack from behind.

  Holding my breath, I held my hand in the air inches away from the paper, not touching it. I felt magic, felt it in waves, images of Crystal’s face, tears and blood, hair and sweat.

  And death.

  I dropped my hand to my side. “Call 911,” I said.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Police?” Tierra asked. “But Darius— The Protectorate—”

  I looked around for the phone. “Nonmag authorities have to be involved. Standard operating procedure. It draws too much attention if—” On the marble-topped kitchen island I found a cordless phone next to another sculpture of a woman, this one in papier-mâché. It looked old or as if it had been left out in the sun, scorched and yellowed. I picked up the handset. “If there’s… an emergency.”

  Warren looked up at me, even more years etched into the lines of his face. The spells he must have used to look younger were falling apart. “Maybe there’s time. They can help look for her.”

  The doorbell rang, followed by Zoe’s voice. “Warren? It’s me and Phil. Can we come in?”

  Tierra left the kitchen and returned a moment later with the couple.

  “Have you called the police?” Phil asked, taking charge.

  I held up the phone. “Just about to.”

  Phil held out his hand. “Let Warren do it. It’ll be better if the rest of us keep our distance.”

  “Are you up to that?” Tierra asked Warren.

  He nodded. “We’ve got to find her.”

  Phil took the phone from me and gave it to Warren, who took it with a shaking hand.

  “Darius came by the cottage,” Zoe said, blinking back tears. “We didn’t realize it was serious.”

  I looked around at the group gathered in the kitchen. Birdie had come in and was standing in the hallway behind me, Zoe and Phil were in the kitchen with Warren, Tierra, and Darius. “Where’s Nathan?” I asked.

  Birdie shot Tierra an uneasy look. “He went upstairs,” she said quietly. “To his room, I guess. He watched them from the window. Warren and Tierra, I mean, when they got back.”

  Darius would question him. I turned to Zoe, the one guest in the room who had been Crystal’s friend. “You went to see her last night before you went to bed,” I said. “How did she seem then?”

  “But that’s just it,” Zoe said, her voice rising. “She didn’t answer the door. I haven’t seen her since… since I walked her over here last night. She said she wasn’t feeling well. If only—”

  Phil put his arm around her and guided her out of the kitchen through another doorway, speaking quietly. Warren still hadn’t dialed. Tierra put her hand on his shoulder, and he reached up, clasped her fingers, and nodded slowly.

  I backed out into the hallway, bumping into Birdie. I gestured toward the front door, and we went outside and gathered with Phil and Zoe near the garden path.

  “Birdie and I can search along the shore to the south,” I said. “You and Zoe—”

  Phil’s gaze darted to something over my shoulder. “He’s found something.” He released Zoe and hurried toward the cliff path.

  Darius soon came into view, running toward us. Ignoring Phil, he ran past him and came directly to me.

  “Call 911,” Darius said.

  I nodded. “Warren’s doing it right now. What happened? What did—”

  He shook his head, looking at the others, his chest heaving with exertion. “Why is he calling? What did he find?”

  “A note,” I said. “What did you find?”

  He hesitated again, frowning at Birdie, Zoe, Phil. “Her clothes,” he said finally. “On the beach.”

  Zoe cried out. “Oh my God.” Phil took her in his arms.

  Remembering the painful magic I felt on the note, I said, “Show me.”

  “No. Nobody can go down there until the nonmag police get here.” Darius held my gaze. The notebook was in his hand. “We’re just a group of old friends having a good time. We’re shocked and afraid and have no idea what drove her to do this.”

  “You don’t think—” I began.

  “He’s right,” Phil said. “We’ve got about ten minutes to get our stories straight.”

  “Stories?” Birdie asked.

  We looked at her. Zoe, Phil, Darius, and I were raised to deal with situations like this, but she’d grown up thinking of herself as a normal person. The only priority as important as saving lives was hiding the existence of the witch world. Anyone working
for the Protectorate or in high witch society would have cover stories to deal with the nonmagical authorities if there was any trouble. Even a car accident called for a few lies. But a missing person? A probable death?

  Every witch would want to make sure they told a compatible story.

  “I think we can all tell the truth this time,” I said. “None of us has done any magic. Birdie, you’re my neighbor in Silverpool—actually, now my new housemate—and I brought you with me to enjoy a free vacation.”

  “And Crystal invited you because of our mutual friend Helen Mendoza,” Darius said. “Always tell the truth as much as you can. Play dumb for the rest.”

  “I can do that,” Birdie said, nodding.

  “Zoe and Crystal are old friends,” Phil said. “That’s easy. And Tierra used to work for Warren. Also easy.”

  “What if they ask… what she did?” Birdie asked. “What kind of work Tierra did for Warren?”

  “They should have a story ready from the old days,” Darius said, making a note. “They’re both artists, in a way. Making sculptures, dolls, puppets, crafts or whatever. That’s easy.”

  “None of this is easy,” Zoe snapped. Tears streamed down her face.

  Phil put his arm around her, drawing her against him. “We’ll be in the cottage. Zoe is obviously very upset. She and Crystal are old friends. Were. Anyway, it’s a shock.”

  “I have to insist you don’t leave the property,” Darius said. “The Protectorate always investigates a suspicious death—”

  Zoe let out a sob.

  Caressing her hair, Phil looked at Darius. “You’re sure?”

  Darius nodded.

  A glimmer of something—satisfaction? relief?—passed over Phil’s handsome features before he guided Zoe out of the garden and away, up the grassy slope to the cottage.

  We waited there until we heard the sirens.

  For hours I waited inside the farmhouse with Birdie, Nathan, and Darius on the couches overlooking the ocean. Nathan, who had come downstairs when Darius went to get him, said he didn’t know anything about Crystal, he hadn’t even been here last night, and if he ever considered visiting the north coast again, he hoped one of us would spell him unconscious.

  Because Crystal’s body hadn’t been found, everyone from the Mendocino volunteer firefighters to the US Coast Guard was called in. County sheriff’s deputies and paramedics arrived. Once a deputy got our names and concluded we weren’t immediately helpful, they left us in the house with instructions to stay there for more questions—after. After they found her body. After they gave up on finding her. They didn’t say.

  Tierra stayed with Warren, and Phil and Zoe kept to themselves in their cottage. I found I missed Phil’s confident, calm authority as a counterweight to Darius, who was strung so tight I could detect magic energy leaking out of his skin like sweat. Sitting idle and doing nothing but reading and doodling in his notebook was driving him insane. He’d changed into sweats and the Giant’s T-shirt in an effort to look like an ordinary guy on vacation, but he looked like a cop to me, and I worried that the real cops would think so too and ask him too many questions.

  “Helicopter’s here,” Darius said abruptly. “Coast Guard.”

  We hadn’t been talking, but now we froze completely, listening to the distant chopper.

  “She’ll be south of here,” Nathan said. “Miles, probably.”

  “Maybe she’s only pretending to be dead so she can get away,” Birdie said.

  Darius looked at her, then at me.

  “It’s possible,” I said.

  Darius shook his head. “No.”

  “You found her clothes, but she could’ve left anything behind to fool people,” Birdie continued.

  “No,” Darius said again.

  Because of the death I’d felt on that note, I believed him. But why did he believe it? “What did you find on the beach that convinced you?” I asked.

  He glanced imperceptibly at Nathan. “We’ll know when they find the body.”

  “If they find it,” Nathan said.

  Darius sipped his coffee. I caught his eye and silently demanded he tell me what he knew, but he looked away.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “What can I do?” Birdie asked.

  “Go to your room and lock the door. Set up boundary spells like I taught you. Don’t answer it for anyone, not even the police, only me.”

  “Not even Darius?”

  I reached into a bag of stones I’d brought from home, selecting three that felt right in my palm. Warm, electric, smooth—attuned to me and nobody else. “Not even him.”

  She brushed the hair out of her eyes and moved to the connecting door. “Right. OK. I don’t know if I can make anything very strong—”

  “You can. Practice, and you can.” I left her and went down the stairs to the landing so I could look out the window to the driveway, barn, and carriage house. The sheriff's white SUV was still parked outside, but the fire crew was long gone.

  I turned my attention to the garden, holding the stones against my forehead. The fading sun was casting deep shadows into the agapanthus, rosemary and sage bushes, camellias. An old rhododendron as large as a tree stood in the center of the garden; beneath it was a granite basin filled with water. A tiny copper wind chime jingled from a low branch.

  A fairy home by any measure—and yet it was uninhabited. I’d considered the possibility the local fae were simply shy or gifted at hiding—but with the stones at my forehead, enhancing my sight, I was positive they weren’t there.

  I went back up to the second floor and walked down the hall to Darius’s room. Standard procedure would be for him to remain inactive and out of sight while the nonmagical authorities were working nearby. After that, I had no idea what he would do. He might close the file as completed and go home, or he might threaten every witch in a ten-mile radius with detention, hex everyone with truth spells, call in backup from Diamond Street. Anything was possible. Warren Hawk’s wife was dead, and a Protectorate agent was on the scene. There would be questions. Other powerful witches would demand punishment.

  I paused, hand lifted at Darius’s door. Was it worth sticking around to risk getting caught in the dragnet? As long as the sheriff’s deputy was downstairs, Darius was limited in what he could do to me. Birdie and I could pack up and run. If I was safe inside my house in Silverpool, the Protectorate wouldn’t waste the witchpower to get me out.

  But then I might never know what had happened here, and the Protectorate could kill Seth.

  Darius opened the door and stared at me over the threshold, regarding my raised fist with a raised eyebrow.

  “The fairies are missing,” I said.

  “What fairies?”

  “The local ones.” I maneuvered past him into his room. His was a master suite, larger than mine, and had cushioned seating under a bay window with an ocean view. “Nice.”

  He closed the door, and I felt a membrane of silence drop over us like a bell jar. “How do you know the local fae are missing?”

  I brought out my stones and held them before him in my palm. “These.” Let him think my ability to sense fairies came entirely from a powerful rock.

  “Is that why Raynor sent you?” he asked. “Because he wanted you to watch for fae activity?”

  I shrugged.

  He seemed to take that as confirmation. Nodding with satisfaction to finally have an explanation of what I was doing there, he asked, “When did they leave?”

  “They were missing when I got here.”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “You didn’t want my help,” I said.

  He scowled. “I don’t want your interference, but I need to know if you discover anything relevant.”

  “I’ll tell you what I think it means if you tell me what you saw on the beach.”

  “That’s for Raynor’s ears only.”

  “He’d want you to tell me,” I said. “We need to work together.”

  “I’ll be the ju
dge of that. Now that there’s been a death, everything’s changed. Raynor will need to reassess the situation.”

  “Haven’t you talked to him yet?”

  Darius crossed his arms. “I need more information first.”

  “Does he even know Crystal is dead?”

  “Of course.”

  “And is he sending another agent? Calling you home?”

  “I told him I would give him a full report soon.” Darius looked at his watch. “I thought the nonmag police would be gone by now. They assume it was a suicide.”

  “And you? What was it you saw? Did she leave her jewelry? Any magic sign?”

  He let out a long breath. “The way she undressed was potentially important,” he said finally.

  I squeezed the rocks in my fist, fighting the temptation to use them as a truth extractor. “How did she undress?”

  He paused as if he was going to refuse to tell me, but then he said, “Her clothing and other belongings were scattered around the beach as if she’d taken them off in a hurry. On her way into the water.”

  From what I’d seen of Crystal, I’d pictured her clothes in a neat pile, carefully folded on a blanket near her shoes, as if she’d gone swimming. Her house was tidy with pride of appearance; I imagined she was the type to handle her clothes carefully, never fling them onto a chair, let alone the sand.

  “Will you show me the pictures?” I asked.

  He looked at me expressionlessly, but I knew he’d taken photos of the scene. He would also have taken sand and rock samples to analyze for magic residue here or in San Francisco, taken any objects of Crystal’s the nonmag police wouldn’t miss, and sought fairy witnesses. His inability to see or hear fairies wouldn’t prevent him from calling out for help, hoping for volunteers, busybody or sociable fairies with information.

  “Please,” I said. “I might notice something useful. What harm is there in show—”

  He held the phone out to me. “I was going to show you anyway, but you distracted me with the fairy talk.”