by Zoe Arden
"That was the warden." She looked at Sean, her eyes irritated, then turned to me. "You're free to go," she said almost too softly to hear.
I blinked. "I'm what?" I think I was in shock but the sudden turn of events.
Lizzie blew out a loud breath, absentmindedly smacking her hands together. "He said to release you." Her tone was agitated and resentful.
"He did?" I asked. She nodded, turning away from me, too angry to look at my face another second.
Even Sheriff Knoxx looked confused but I wasn't about to question things and get stuck here for another hour. I jumped out of my chair and, when no one stopped me, I bolted out the door and didn't look back.
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CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
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"Ava, it's for you." Eleanor handed me the phone. I pressed it to my ear, trying to block out the noise of the bakery.
I was hoping it was Lucy. She hadn't texted me since yesterday, and I was afraid she was either mad at me or thought I was mad at her. I wasn't. I'd been irritated at the time, sure, but I knew that whatever was happening in Sweetland wasn't her fault. She'd only told Sheriff Knoxx and the others what she thought she'd seen at Coffee Cove because she was afraid it would make things worse if she didn't. She was afraid someone else might get hurt.
"Hello?" I asked as Snowball plopped down at my feet. All the familiars were at Mystic today. They'd woken up with a deep need for sugar and tuna, said Snowball. Tootsie had concurred. Rocky had amended the tuna to bacon, and Eleanor had promised him a maple bacon cupcake if he kept an eye on his feline counterparts and made sure they didn't get into Trixie's frosting.
"Ava?" It was Dr. Dunne.
"Yes," I said. "Is everything okay?" My heart skipped a beat as worry overtook me. It seemed like every other day people were landing themselves in the hospital. I couldn't help wondering who might be next.
"Better than okay," he said. "Colt just woke up."
"Oh, my roses, he did?"
"Yes, and he's asking for you." I didn't wait for him to finish. I ripped my apron off, flung it on the counter, and told Trixie, Eleanor, and my dad the good news before hurrying to the hospital.
I ran into his room, expecting to find Russ beaming back at me, and instead found Warden Banks. He was hovering to the left of Colt's bed. My eyes widened when I saw him. For a moment, I was afraid he was there to place Colt under arrest... or worse, take him to Swords and Bones. I had no idea why he'd do something like that but nothing that had happened in the last week made any sense.
"Colt?" I asked, shaking my head, trying to clear it. He smiled at me and I hurried to his side, taking his hand in mine.
"Hey, baby," he said. "There's my little dumpling." I giggled. They must have had him on some type of medication because Colt never called me 'baby' or 'dumpling.' I shot the warden a look. He was staring at us without emotion. He looked as though he couldn't have cared less that I was here. I leaned over and planted my mouth over Colt's. His lips were as warm as the rest of him. Warmer than usual. I wondered if that was normal, given his circumstances.
"Are you okay?" I said. "How do you feel? Where's your dad? He's hardly left your side this whole time you've been in here."
Colt chuckled. "He went to get me some donuts. They keep trying to give me Jell-O. Green Jell-O." He wrinkled his nose. "I hate Jell-O."
Warden Banks cleared his throat.
"Warden Banks," I said, nodding politely. "What are you doing here?" It came out sounding harsher than I meant it to but I didn't know another way to phrase my question. I wanted to know what he was doing here. There was no reason to beat around the bush about it.
"I came the second I heard Colt was awake," the warden said. "I'm glad you're here, actually. There's something I wanted to discuss with you."
"Me, too," I said, taking a breath. "I wanted to thank you for getting me released from the sheriff's station the other night." I didn't actually want to talk to him at all, let alone thank him, but it seemed the polite thing to do.
He waved it off as if it was nothing.
"I knew you were innocent of the crime," he said. I scrunched my brow together. Even I wasn't sure that I was innocent. Part of me thought Lucy had hallucinated the whole attack on Polly but another part of me thought she'd been right. I just wasn't ready to face the consequences of admitting that I'd been inhabited by a trickster. After all, if it had gotten inside me once, what was to stop it from doing it again?
"How could you know that?" I asked him.
He caught the suspicious look on my face.
"Intuition," he said. "Every warden must have a good one. I know when to trust my gut, and my gut last night told me you had done nothing wrong."
I had a million questions that began to surface the more Warden Banks spoke. There was something really off about what he was saying. Wasn't there? The whole world had gone topsy turvy lately, and I didn't know what to make of any of it.
Colt was smiling up at us from his bed, grinning like the Cheshire cat. I kissed him again and he tried to pull me onto the bed with him. I hurried to push myself back, afraid of hurting him. Whatever he was on, they might want to consider lightening it up. I was afraid he'd end up hurting himself. He seemed to think that everything was funny right now.
Dr. Dunne came into the room just as I managed to squirm out of his grip.
"Good, you're here," he said, coming up to me. "Russell should be back in a minute. I wanted to let you both know that we're releasing Colt tomorrow."
"Releasing him?" I looked at the goofy grin still on his face. "Is that wise? It looks like you've got him on all kinds of stuff right now."
"That's just temporary. He'll be his old self again in no time. I only gave him a few medications to make sure there was no trace of anything still in his system."
"Does that mean you figured out what was wrong with him?"
"Yes. The knife that he was stabbed with wasn't hexed, precisely. It had been touched with dark magic, which had sort of rubbed off."
"Trickster magic?" I ventured.
Dr. Dunne's eye widened. "Yes, as a matter of fact. We ran a few more tests and found the same trace magical elements on Miss Peacock. We're treating her for them now."
"So... they're both going to be fine?"
"That's right."
I let out a sigh of relief. Warden Banks cocked his head toward the doctor.
"When will I be able to transport Polly Peacock back to Swords and Bones?" he asked Dr. Dunne.
Dr. Dunne hesitated. "Any time after tomorrow morning, though I highly doubt she had anything to do with—"
"I wasn't asking for your opinion on Polly's guilt or innocence," Warden Banks snapped. "I merely asked when she would be ready for transport. And you have told me. Thank you."
"What are you talking about?" I asked. "Transport? You're taking Polly back to prison?"
"Calista Woodruff as well. Although I could not get Dean's permission to take her to Swords and Bones. She'll be returning to Witch Hill."
"Why?" I demanded, my temper flaring. "That hardly seems fair. Polly was attacked. How does that translate into her returning to jail?"
"Everything that's been happening started after she and Calista were released," Warden Banks said. "That cannot be a coincidence. Besides, now that Polly has given her full confession to Mr. Usher and Lizzie as to poisoning those macaroons, even Dean Lampton has been forced to agree with me. It is safer for Heavenly Haven to have her behind bars."
"But that was just a mistake," I said, surprised to hear myself defending her. When had she even confessed? It must have been after they'd brought her here.
"Mistake is one word for it," he said. "Another way to put it might be breaking parole. She willfully involved herself in an act of malicious intent. For that, she must pay. This was what I've been trying to warn people about all along. Finally, they can see that I was right."<
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I felt my temper about to burst. I looked down at Colt. He was snoring.
"You're wrong about everything. You know that, don't you?" I spat.
"Including you, you mean?" he asked, a big smile on his face. "Would you prefer that I tell my guards to bring you along to Swords and Bones with the others after all? One call to Dean and I'll make it happen."
"Dean Lampton hasn't been on your side this whole time. Why would he be now?"
"Because until now, President Ashby did not realize the full extent of the problems here in Heavenly Haven. Luckily, I called him last night and filled him in. He, in turn, called Dean and told him to fix the situation before it got any worse, or Dean would be out of a job."
Colt let out a loud snore that shook his bed frame. Dr. Dunne chuckled. "He's fine. Just sleeping." He looked nervously at Warden Banks. I could tell he wanted him out of the room but wasn't sure whether he should say anything. The warden was an irritatingly powerful man, it seemed.
"If Colt wakes up," I told the doctor, "tell him I'll be back when he's alone again." Then I stormed from the room before I could punch Warden Banks in the face.
Outside the hospital, I took several deep breaths before heading back toward the bakery. I had just reached Town Center when I saw Sheriff Knoxx hiding behind Wanda's Willow, a giant willow tree in the town square that people liked to picnic under. He looked around, watching to see if anyone was looking his way, then hurried from his spot behind the trunk toward the edge of town.
I hesitated just a moment before deciding to follow him. I knew I was probably being paranoid but what if he was possessed again? The trickster could still be in him. Maybe it had never left. I stayed several paces behind him. Every time he turned, I jumped behind a rock or a tree or whatever was there. When he reached the edge of Beggars Forest, he took one final look around before stepping inside and disappearing into the thick layer of trees.
"Beggars Forest," I muttered to myself. The goblins lived there. What was Sheriff Knoxx up to? There was only one way to find out. I entered the forest just behind him.
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CHAPTER
THIRTY
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Sheriff Knoxx wandered through the forest in a seemingly aimless manner. The trees were enormous in Beggars Forest, more so than most other places on the island. Even Whisper Crossing didn't have trees this large. They towered one hundred, two hundred, and, in some cases, three hundred feet in the air. Giant bushes, plants, and boulders were mixed in with them. There were small species, too, sprinkled along the forest floor. The overall effect was one of wonder. Many people said the goblins had used magic to make the forest this way. Goblin magic was slightly different than wizard magic. In many cases, it was more powerful. Though, like anything, it depended upon the goblin or witch performing the spell.
I didn't think that Sheriff Knoxx knew where he was going. I watched as he stepped left, stepped right, then stepped left again. It was almost like he was dancing rather than walking. He took two steps forward, two steps back, then continued on in a straight, forward line for a half mile. Maybe he was still being inhabited by the trickster, who had taken him in here, only to make him lose his way. That seemed like the sort of thing that a trickster might find funny.
Or maybe what looks random isn't random at all.
The goblins that lived in Beggars Forest had a reputation for preferring their own company. They had taken several precautions to keep people from entering their home, including a particularly irritating spell that attempted to make you feel as though you'd forgotten some pressing matter and must leave the forest at once. Right now, the idea that I'd left the stove on itched in the back of my head. I pushed it away, knowing it was a trick. I hadn't even used the stove this morning.
The goblins did not concern themselves with what was happening in the wizarding world and only rarely did they venture out of the forest. President Ashby had no say over what happened in Goblin Territory, and both the witches and goblins preferred it that way. There was an unwritten rule that if they didn't bother you, you shouldn't bother them.
King Zulubar was the leader of the goblins. I'd met him before, though I couldn't remember whether he was an elected king or he'd been born into it. I was pretty sure that royalty was considered bred within a goblin, much like the royal families in Europe.
King Zulubar hadn't exactly been friendly the last time we'd met, though he had helped me out with a problem. He had even attended a party my aunts and I had once thrown, bringing a few of his goblin friends along. The entire town had talked about it for weeks after. That had been months ago, though, and I hadn't seen him since.
Mystic Cupcake did deliver semi-regularly to the goblins in Beggars Forest. They had a serious sweet tooth and were not good bakers in and of themselves. Usually, when an order came in from a goblin, it was Rocky or one of the other familiars who delivered it. The familiars were well-liked and widely accepted by the goblins. Rocky would return from a delivery with a bag of bones for him to gnaw on. Tootsie and Snowball always returned with their breath smelling of tuna.
Sheriff Knoxx was also an accepted part of the Goblin Territory. Being part goblin himself, he was considered one of them, even though his appearance was nothing like theirs. If you hadn't known that he was part goblin or would never have suspected it. He looked like a warlock, nothing more. Except, of course, for when his temper flared. That was the only telltale sign that he had a little goblin in him. That and the way he liked to puff out his chest whenever he felt threatened.
The sheriff stopped walking beside a giant rock and looked around. Then he raised his head toward the sky and let out a giant wail that sounded like a cross between the sound a goose makes and a small airplane. I hunkered back behind a tree, waiting. I'd never heard this kind of call before. The last time I'd met the goblins, I had blindly stumbled upon them in the forest. They'd shot at me with an arrow. That was before we'd been introduced, though. They'd been afraid I was there to attack them and had enacted their "shoot first, ask questions later" plan.
A second after Sheriff Knoxx's strange greeting, a goblin's head popped up. It stared at the sheriff from between two bushes, its eyes bugging out of its head. It let out a loud, wild call that mimicked the sheriff's. I couldn't always tell the girl goblins from the boy goblins. Some of them had hair but not all of them. This one was hairless with scaly skin tinted a dark green. A second after the first goblin appeared, so did another one. Then a third and a fourth. Finally, King Zulubar himself stepped out from a patch of trees.
"Greetings, Sheriff," the king said, "I welcome you with warm tidings." He bowed so low that his long nose touched the forest floor. He was gray and scaly and surprisingly tall for a goblin. I watched him as he and the sheriff circled each other like two dogs who had just met in a park
"Thank you, King Zulubar," Sheriff Knoxx said and bowed back to him. King Zulubar bowed again, and the process repeated twice more before the official greetings were finally over.
"You know why you are here?" King Zulubar asked. His voice was deep and throaty. The kind of voice most wizards got when they had a cold.
"I think so, yes," Sheriff Knoxx said.
There were murmurs amongst the group of goblins surrounding them. "You are here because of the trickster," King Zulubar said.
" For some reason, I was surprised that the goblins knew anything about what was happening with the trickster, and even more surprised that Sheriff Knoxx was talking about it so openly. When I'd tried to tell him there was a trickster loose, he'd acted like he thought I was crazy.
"I need to know what you know," Sheriff Knoxx said. "The trickster is in our small town and is hurting people. In some cases, killing them."
There were more murmurs. King Zulubar nodded. "We know of your troubles. That is why we asked you to come. We must tell you what is happening before more deaths occur. Before t
he creature you call trickster moves into our forest."
I took a step forward, eager to hear what they were saying. A twig snapped beneath my feet. All the goblins turned toward me. An arrow whizzed past my right ear, almost taking off a chunk of it. I jumped out from my hiding place, hands raised.
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CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
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"It’s me! Ava Fortune! Don't shoot!" I looked wildly around, my heart beating fast.
King Zulubar held up his hand and the goblins stopped shooting at once. I breathed a sigh of relief. It didn't last for long, though. Sheriff Knox was staring at me with angry eyes.
"You followed me," the sheriff said.
"I'm sorry," I told him. "I saw you come into the forest, and I was worried you were inhabited by the trickster again."
He scoffed. "You could have been killed coming in here like that. Besides, I've already told you, there's no trickster inhabiting me. It was inhabiting you."
"It was inhabiting both of you," King Zulubar said. "And many more besides."
The sheriff and I turned and stared at the king. He didn't seem angry at my presence. If anything, he looked glad I was here. There were theories that some goblins were psychic, just like some witches. Maybe King Zulubar had been expecting me all along.
I had no idea how he knew about anything to do with the trickster but there was a look in his dark eyes that made it hard to doubt him. If he really were psychic, that at least would explain a few things, like how he knew so much about what was happening.
