by Zoe Arden
"So," I finally said. "What do you think about marriage?"
She grinned. "I thought you'd never ask. I'd be honored."
I smacked her playfully with my hand and laughed. "Can you ever be serious?"
"Sure, when needs be."
"Well, needs be," I said, and the smile faded from her lips.
"You and Colt?" she asked, looking away from me and out toward the water.
"Yes."
There was a long pause. I could almost hear her brain ticking. "Did he ask you?"
"No... not yet, at least."
"What makes you think he will?"
"He brought it up at the coffee shop the other day."
"Is that what you two were talking about? I thought you looked pretty serious."
I nodded. "He asked me what I thought about marriage."
"In general?"
"Yeah, I suppose. But he was talking about us."
"Maybe he only wanted to get a feel for your future. It doesn't mean he's about to pop the question next time you see him."
"I'm supposed to have dinner with him tonight."
"Cancel."
I looked at her. "Why?"
"Because your brain is all rattled from your fall. You're not thinking clearly. What if you go to dinner and he does bring it up? You don't want to say the wrong thing then regret it."
"What makes you think I'd regret saying yes?"
She looked at me and cocked an eyebrow. "I didn't say you'd regret saying 'yes.' I said you'd regret saying the wrong thing. The wrong thing could be just as easily be 'no.' "
I bit my bottom lip. "I'm not sure this is helping to clarify things for me."
"I'm not trying to tell you what to do," she said.
"Then what are you doing?"
"I'm trying to make you think." She paused. "Colt's a good guy. I like him, and I think you two probably belong together..."
"But...?"
"But I don't know that. Only you can know that." She looked at me from the corner of her eye. "Do your doubts have anything to do with Damon?"
I blinked, surprised to hear her ask that.
"Damon? No. I haven't even seen him since all that stuff at the Mayor's Ball. Why would you even ask that?"
She shrugged. "Just checking. Like I said, I'm just trying to make you think."
"Well, stop it."
We continued in silence for a few more minutes. My eyes searched the sand. The shore itself wasn't very wide, just a few feet. Enough to be a shore but not so much that you would want to spend your day picnicking down here. Small and large rocks jutted up from the ground and seaweed lay in slimy, dark green splotches.
"It's not Damon," I said quietly and let out a sigh. "I really am over him. I have been for a while. I think it just took a little time for my brain to process it."
"Then what's the problem?"
"I don't know. When I was falling, all I could think about was how silly I was for being scared to marry Colt. How much I really wanted to marry him, after all."
"And now?"
"Now I'm scared that I was only thinking that way because I was falling. I thought my life was gonna end in a matter of seconds. Now, it's back to years."
Lucy stopped walking and looked at me.
"When he asks, assuming that you're not just all full of yourself here and he really is gonna ask..."
I couldn't help smiling.
"...then don't think about it. Just listen to your heart. Whatever your first gut reaction is, go with it. It's probably the right one."
"Thanks," I said and gave her a hug. "That's just what I needed to hear."
"I serve many purposes, first and foremost of which is advice columnist."
I giggled and started walking again. I stopped halfway up the beach.
"Look!" I shouted, pointing toward a small pile of green and blue leaves lying on the sand just up ahead of us. They had little spots on them that looked like yellow ladybugs. "It's them! They're still here!" I said excitedly and ran toward them, relief washing over me. I'd been worried that I either wouldn't get the leaves at all, or that I'd have to enlist Colt's help and never hear the end of it.
I hurried over to them, scooping them up and shaking off the dirt.
"Good," Lucy said. "Does that mean we can go home now?"
A crack of thunder sounded overhead. We looked up at the sky and saw a dark cloud forming just above us.
"It's a rain cloud," I said, my heart hammering.
"It's just a rain cloud," Lucy said but I could hear the anxiety back in her voice.
More thunder sounded and there was a flash of lightning from above the cliff where I'd tried to climb down. We looked up and saw a figure standing at the top of the cliff, looking down on us.
I gasped. "Who is that?"
"I don't know. I can't see their face."
The person just stood there, watching us. They were dressed in a black cloak and had a hood pulled up over their head, obscuring their face. The thunder sounded once more and then the rain started.
"Let's go," Lucy said, pulling at my arm. We hurried back to the car. I felt the dark figure's eyes following me until we were out of view and even after that, I could still feel them watching. And waiting.
* * *
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
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I texted Colt and moved our dinner to the next day. I was just too tired after the cliffs to deal with dinner, plus I needed to finish sorting out my feelings regarding our impending marriage talk. I hoped that Lucy was right and when the time came it would be easy for me to decide what I truly wanted. Was it possible that I was jumping the gun, after all? What if Colt really just wanted to discuss our future, not plan it?
After the bakery closed for the night, Eleanor came over to the house I shared with Trixie and my dad and the three of us—me, Trixie, and Eleanor—sat around discussing what had happened at the cliffs that day. I had no intention of telling my father anything, though. He'd just freak out. Our house—which Eleanor had also lived in until she'd married Sheriff Knoxx—was a mid-size house with two bathrooms and three bedrooms. It wasn't anything fancy but it was home.
Tootsie, Trixie's furry orange feline, wrapped himself between her ankles and mewed loudly for some food. It made me miss Snowball, who still hadn't resurfaced. I was really beginning to worry about her now. Maybe before I'd asked her to spy on Nightshade, I should have told her not to stay out all night without telling me where she was.
I suppressed a laugh, realizing how much I sounded like my father when I'd been growing up. I was treating Snowball like she was my child but in a lot of ways, she was. She was also one tough feline, though, and I had to remember that. Familiars were quite powerful, much more so than a lot of paranormals outside the witching world gave them credit for. It was easy to think they were just another cat when you looked at their pointed ears and fluffy tails but the truth was that familiars possessed magic that not even witches and wizards fully understood.
Rocky, Eleanor's familiar, lay at her feet. He got up once when Trixie set out a plate of bologna sandwiches, wagging his tail excitedly. Eleanor fed him one then he tried to crawl into her lap. The giant wolfhound nearly pushed her out of her chair trying to curl up in her lap like a cat. Trixie and I cracked up. Water even came out of Trixie's nose when she tried to take a drink. Eventually, Rocky settled down and resumed sleeping at her feet.
"Zane is working late tonight," Eleanor said, "so he won't even notice that I'm gone. I left a note for him though, just in case."
"Do you know if he's had any luck in the murder investigation?" Trixie asked.
"Not so far as I can tell. He's been grumpy all week. I asked him what he'd like me to pack for his lunch the other day, and you know what his response was? Food." She laughed. "So, I gave him a salami sandwich and when he got home that night, he hadn't touched it. He said he didn
't like salami." She rolled her eyes. "Zane loves salami. I'm telling you, this case is making him nuts."
Trixie looked at me. "What about you, Ava? Has Colt said anything to you about the case?"
"Actually, no. He's been pretty busy. I know that Dean is making him work longer hours and... he's just got a lot going on right now." I didn't want to get into the conversation I'd overheard between him and Dean on the phone the other day. I was still hoping that he might come around and tell me whatever it was that he'd been keeping secret. If he expected me to marry him, he'd better.
My dad had gone over to Sadie's after the bakery closed, so my aunts and I were free to talk openly without worry that he might overhear.
"I think we should just tell Eli what we suspect," Trixie said, echoing my initial feelings on the subject regarding my dad and Sadie.
"I don't know anymore," I told her. "I think we were right to keep it a secret. He really cares about her."
"All the more reason he should know what's going on," Trixie said. "He's a man, not a boy. He can handle it."
I wanted to agree with her but I knew how fickle love could be. He might love Sadie desperately but I sometimes had the feeling that his love was balanced precariously on the edge of a teeter-totter. My mom was forever stuck in his mind. It was only recently, after meeting Sadie, that he'd finally begun the process of letting her go. If anything should interfere with that now, it might ruin what could be a very good thing for him.
"For now," I said, "I think we should stick to what we've been doing. Say nothing."
"Do you think it could have been Sadie on top of the cliff today?" Eleanor asked, her brow furling.
"I honestly don't know. The figure we saw was too far away to tell anything, plus they had a hood covering their face."
"Were they tall or short?" Trixie asked.
I tried to recreate the image in my head. "Not short," I said. "But not a basketball player either."
"So average height?" Elanor asked.
"Yeah, I guess so."
"For a man or a woman?" Trixie asked, and Eleanor and I looked at her.
"A man?" I asked. "What man are you suspecting?"
Trixie shrugged. "I was just asking. I don't think we should make assumptions."
It was a surprisingly astute observation, especially coming from Trixie. Not that Trixie wasn't smart but she was also a bit of a scatterbrain. Profound ideas did not naturally come spewing out of her.
"Well, if it wasn't Sadie, then I don't know who it could have been," Eleanor said. "She's the only one who makes any sense in all of this." She took a deep breath. "And if she was there, then your fall was probably no accident."
"You mean she tried to kill me?" I squealed.
"Almost certainly. Dark spirits don't just play games. They're much more vicious than that."
"What about the cupcake wrapper?" Trixie asked. "Any more ideas on that? Do we still think it's connected somehow?"
Eleanor sighed and shook her head. "I don't know what to think anymore." She stood up and went to the coffeepot, refilling each of our cups. "The only thing I do know is that our only suspect, at least the only one who currently makes sense, is Sadie." She paused. "I've been working on a banishment spell to cast the dark spirit out of her, just in case I'm right. I think I've got it just about finished. I infused the spell into some molasses and just need to add it to some cookies in the morning." She looked at me. "Your dad told me molasses cookies are one of her favorites."
"Then what?" I asked. "We just take the cookies to her and she eats one and... what? The spirit just vanishes if it's in her?"
"Precisely," Eleanor said.
"It sounds so simple."
"It is," Eleanor replied. "Provided that I'm right and the spirit is inside her. If I'm wrong..." She shrugged. "It won't hurt Sadie but it won't exactly help us much either."
"We might as well try it," Trixie said.
We finished the sandwiches and I started to yawn. Eleanor said goodnight and went home, and I went upstairs to bed. I'd just finished brushing my teeth and had gotten under the covers when I heard a soft "meeeoooww" from the foot of my bed.
"Snowball?" I said, jolting up and turning the light back on.
Snowball jumped onto my bed and started kneading my chest.
"Snowy missed Mama."
"Mama missed Snowy," I said, holding her to me and kissing the top of her head. "I'm so sorry I sent you to watch Nightshade. I didn't mean for you to be gone so long. Are you okay?"
Snowy licked my face. "Snowball is fine. Snowy discovered much information."
"Oh?" I asked, wide awake now.
"Nightshade has been watching Mama and her bakery for weeks. He goes to visit the goblins in the forest and makes bad claims against Mama. Snowy did not like to hear him say bad things about Mama or aunties. Snowy talked to goblins and told them the truth, that Mama is good, and Nightshade is just jealous."
"Whoa," I said, trying to wrap my head around what Snowy had just told me. "Nightshade is the visitor the goblins told us about?"
"Nightshade is the only non-goblin Snowy has seen in Beggars Forest."
"What did he say to them?"
"That Mama cannot get the looney bin leaves for the magic cookies but his bakery could."
My jaw dropped. "Why would he tell them that?"
"Nightshade's family does not like Mama or aunties. They want to cater the Goblin Ball. That is why Nightshade spies on Mama."
And you went and talked to the goblins for me when you found this out?" I couldn't believe that my little Snowball had actually spoken to the goblins on my behalf. Snowball was so tiny, and the goblins were so big. They could have crushed Snowball with one stomp of their foot if they'd wanted to.
"Goblins like Snowball," she purred. "They gave Snowy shrimp because they had no tuna but Snowy told them that was okay."
"Oh, my roses," I said, jumping out of bed so I could text Lucy. I scratched Snowy's head and she nuzzled against my leg.
"Snowball did good?" she asked.
"Snowball did very good," I told her. "Snowball gets tuna for the next week."
Her eyes lit up.
"Come on, let's get you a bowl right now," I said and raced her down the stairs.
* * *
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
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I brought Snowball to work with me the next day and made her repeat everything for Eleanor and Trixie while I kept my father occupied. It wasn't odd bringing your familiars to work with you—a lot of witches and warlocks did it—so my dad didn't even think twice about it. Oftentimes, Rocky, Tootsie, Snowball, or all three might accompany us to the bakery; it just depended on how bored they were and how much work we had to get done.
"So, you're seeing Colt tonight, is that right?" my dad asked as he got together a bowl of chocolate cinnamon frosting. He kept shooting glances at me as I worked on my happiness extract. He seemed to be waiting for me to say something.
"That's right."
"Anything special you two are celebrating?" My dad looked over at me again with a knowing grin, and suddenly I got it.
"You know, don't you?"
His eyes widened innocently, and he suppressed a laugh. "Know what?" he asked, playing dumb. I glared at him and he shrugged. "All right. Eleanor might've let something slip to me the other day."
I sighed. "What did she say?"
"That you and Colt were talking about marriage."
I shook my head. I was gonna kill Eleanor later. "We're just talking about it," I told him. "I'm not ready to get married right now." The words came out of my mouth before I even knew what I was saying. I was surprised to realize that I meant them. I loved Colt, and when I'd been falling off the cliff I'd thought of nothing but him but I just wasn't ready. Yet.
"I understand," my dad said, patting my hand with his flour-laden one. White dust settled on my
sleeve. "So will he." He smiled reassuringly at me and for the first time since Colt had brought it up, I felt okay about telling him I wasn't ready.
Eleanor poked her head into the back room. "Eli, I've got some molasses cookies I baked specially for Sadie. Ava and I are just going to drop them off and we'll be right back. Trixie and Snowball will stay here with you."
"That's awfully nice of you," my dad said. "I'm sure she'll love them. I can bring them over later for you if you want, so you don't have to make the trip."
"No!" Eleanor shouted, then giggled nervously. "I mean, no, thank you. I... I'd like to see her for a bit. See how she's doing myself. If she needs a doctor... or anything else... then I want to make sure she gets it."
"I made her go and see Dr. Dunne the other day. He gave her some antibiotics. They should be kicking in any day now, he said."
"Good, I'm glad to hear it. Our cookies can give her a little energy boost to tide her over till then. I added some, um... anti-viral stuff to them."
"Good thinking," my dad said.
Eleanor smiled. "Come along, Ava."
I followed her out the front door just as Trixie flipped over the "OPEN" sign.
Sadie's apartment wasn't more than a ten-minute walk from the bakery. We hurried toward it, Eleanor talking the whole time about what I should do if Sadie's dark spirit suddenly wigged out on me.
"Don't try to touch it," she said. "That might make it easier to infect you." She stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk and the cookies almost went careening to the ground. "Whew, that was close," she said, wiping her brow. She resumed her pace. "If her eyes go all black, or red, don't look directly at them. Look at the floors instead, or the wall, or anywhere but where she wants you to look."
"There's certainly a lot of rules that go into dispelling a dark spirit," I said.
"There's nothing to worry about. Most likely nothing will even happen. If the spirit is inside her, so long as she eats a few of these cookies, it ought to come out without a problem and return to wherever it came from."
