by Mara Webb
“Have at it,” Miller smiled. He held the door open for me and I walked out after him.
“I went to the tea place, the woman there said she’d sold a ton of sleep tea to Rick a few days ago,” I explained.
“I’ll have officers check his room for that, and I guess they need to look for insurance documents too.”
“Was there any CCTV footage from Emmy’s corridor?” I asked.
“Ha! No, half the cameras in that place are faulty. I’ve told Kieran a dozen times to sort it out, but he doesn’t listen to a word I say,” Miller said.
An awkward silence fell, and I felt desperate to fill it with something, anything.
“I’m gonna head home,” Miller smiled. “I think it’s probably best that I just leave my cage where it is, don’t you?”
My heart felt heavy, and I tried to regain that feeling from earlier that had told me that I needed to prioritize myself instead of dancing between him and Ryder.
“Do you need help locking yourself in?” I offered. What a cringe-worthy thing to say. I had done that for him before, but it was still weird for me to bring it up.
“Just go to Effie, I know that’s where you want to be tonight,” he said. “Maybe we can talk in the morning.”
Before I had the opportunity to say another word, he was walking out of the station. Was he planning to break up with me? Were we in a position that ‘breaking-up’ was even possible? We’d been to the Shell’s Day parade, then spent a few minutes alone in the Honeymoon Suite before leaving to get food. It was going to end before it had even begun.
The doctor’s office wasn’t far away, and I knew that would be where I would find Effie. When I got out into the evening air, Greta appeared beside me.
“Why the long face?” she asked.
“Why do you think?” I groaned. I leaned against the wall of the station and ran my hands through my hair. Moving to Hallow Haven was supposed to be a fresh start, I had planned to leave all my old problems behind and be happy here. I’d just adopted a bigger set of problems instead. “Should I just go back to Virginia?”
“You can’t be serious,” Greta said.
“What if I am? I have a boyfriend that thinks I’m in love with another guy, and he might be right, I have a pain in my leg that makes me want to cry a little bit and I definitely missed a meal today. Not to mention Effie,” I groaned.
“What happened with Effie?” Greta interrupted.
“I don’t know. I’m heading to the doctor’s office now, and—” Greta had disappeared before I finished my train of thought. “This is why people don’t usually make friends with ghosts!” I yelled. My outburst earned a few odd looks from tourists on the street, but I didn’t care anymore.
If I alienated both of my guardians, Miller and Ryder, then what exactly was my plan? Now I understood why people say you shouldn’t date someone you work with. I’d had a temp job years and years ago, long before my relationship with my ex-boyfriend, Justin.
It was just a few hours a week typing up notes for the executives, but I’d ended up having a fling with one of the other temps. When I called it off, my boss had to make sure we were never scheduled to work at the same time ever again as it was making everyone else uncomfortable.
I heard a busker playing music down the street and waved in acknowledgement. He nodded back and continued to play his guitar. It was Damon, the most famous busker on the island that had reluctantly gained recognition despite preferring anonymity.
Tourists were scribbling down ideas on the back of receipts and throwing them into the empty guitar case at his feet; Damon preferred to crowd-source ideas for songs rather than perform for money. Weird, right?
I got to Brielle’s office just as the twilight hours were taking hold of the sky. Brielle and Effie were the only ones inside and it seemed that things had calmed down since I’d last seen them both.
“Sadie, how’s the leg?” Brielle asked. Before I opened my mouth to respond, a black cat pushed the front door open and meowed loudly.
“What have I missed?” Fitz asked.
“Where on earth have you been?” I asked. “I don’t know where to start with you.”
“I was golfing! I didn’t just go to Tivercana to follow you around, I have my own life, Sadie!” he howled. My cell phone started ringing and I made a loud noise of annoyance.
“Urgh, can a girl finish a train of thought around here? Jeez.” I saw on the screen that it was a call from Kate; I answered. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Not much… just kidding it’s gone wild over here,” Kate squealed excitedly. “The cops just showed up and dragged Rick away in handcuffs. I’m not gonna say I was intruding on anyone’s thoughts or anything, but I heard that they found some papers in his room that showed that he had, like, three life insurance policies out on his wife!”
“Well at least that drama is over with,” I sighed. “One down, eight million to go.”
“What other drama do you have? Still struggling to decide which guardian you want to snuggle up with tonight?” she teased.
“Effie got injured actually, so—”
I realized that I should have opened with, ‘everything is fine, but…’ instead. Kate burst into the room in an explosion of light, and I stared in astonishment as she started waving her arms around wildly like an unruly octopus. Could everyone just travel via light-explosion now? Where was the newsletter that sent out that information?
“When did you plan on telling me!?” Kate yelled, patting her sister frantically like a TSA agent at an airport. “Who did this? Oh, they are gonna rue the day they messed with you! You mess with the bull you get the horns, but these horns are on a witch and… I’ve lost my train of thought.”
“I’m okay,” Effie said, sitting up.
“Who did this to you?” Kate shrieked again.
“Look, I want everyone to stay calm because I’ve handled it, okay?” Effie looked at each of us, waiting for acknowledgement. “Kate, promise me you will just listen to me and not fly off the handle.”
“I promise nothing,” Kate announced. Effie let out a long sigh.
“We had an IRS agent come over, he caught a flight from wherever it is IRS people live and he came straight here. It was late when he arrived and already dark out. I didn’t think he would be showing up until the morning,” Effie explained. “When I first saw him, I had my suspicions, but it seemed too stupid to say it out loud, so I ignored my instincts.”
“I’m going to kill him,” Kate interrupted.
“Just— hold off until my story is done,” Effie said. “If I had to guess, I’d say he got a little too familiar with someone on the plane and by the time he got to the café it was showing.”
“You’re not saying what I think you’re saying…” Kate said, raising her brows questioningly.
“When do you get to the part that explains why you are covered in blood and the café is closed and the rest of the staff are gone?” I asked.
“I’m getting there,” Effie nodded. “Sadie, there are parts of Hallow Haven that you haven’t been to yet, islands that are more dangerous than any place you could imagine.”
“Yeah, like, super scary stuff,” Kate added.
“Right. There is one place that doesn’t really have a name and we leave it off the maps, hoping people won’t go there. I’ve heard it called ‘Death’s Gate’ by a few people, that makes it sound like a super cool goth bar though,” Effie laughed. “Anyway, they have some interesting practices over there. It’s magic like nothing you’ll see on the main island.”
“Dark magic?” I asked.
“They treat magic more like a religion there, they have isolated themselves by design to avoid interference from people like you and Miller. They don’t want laws getting in the way of their work,” Effie said.
“What is their work?” I pressed.
“They do a lot of blood magic, spells that the rest of us have forbidden. They have old books, back from the times when Salem witche
s were being burned at the stake. That type of magic chips away at the soul, or so I’m told,” Effie sighed. “My point is, that’s where I’ve sent Kane.”
“What?” I shrieked.
“My guess is that he met someone from the dark island on his flight, don’t ask me how she got there.”
“She?”
“Yes,” Kate said. “The island is mostly women, the men there don’t last long.”
“Why?” I asked, looking to Brielle and Fitz to see if they knew about any of this.
“They create vampires, Sadie,” Fitz replied. “Effie is skirting around it, but clearly she thinks someone bit Kane and he came into the café as the vampire poison was taking hold. He’s obviously gone nuts and they’ve had a big fight, or whatever, and she’s sent him to the dark island.”
I blinked a few times as I tried to take it in. Vampires? I don’t know why I found it so surprising as I’d literally seen Miller walking around as a wolf, my familiar was a talking cat that could shift into human form and I had magic in my blood… but vampires just seemed a little farfetched.
“What happens when he gets there?” I asked.
“Greta has always said that there was a good witch there, hiding in plain sight,” Effie said. “She is there to make sure that nothing cataclysmic happens and kills all of us.”
“Good to know,” I replied flatly.
“Yes, well my point is that she might be able to cure Kane and send him back to mainland USA before we have the feds breathing down our necks,” Effie explained. Oh.
18
Effie assured me that everything would be fine. Greta had apparently travelled to the island to meet up with her mystery good witch and explain the situation and I had taken a seat in Brielle’s office to contemplate what had been said.
Why hadn’t Greta told me about the dark island? Or Miller? Did he even know about it?
“What could happen if the feds come?” I asked. “Worst case scenario.”
“Well, they have a paranormal division,” Kate replied. “So, if they start poking their noses into our business then we could end up with someone from head office coming and trying to strip powers away or restricting our magic or taking all of our candles… all the bad stuff.”
“Strip powers? They can do that?” I gasped.
“I heard a rumor that they did that to a witch community in Connecticut, we haven’t heard from them since,” Brielle said. “We manage to fly under the radar because we are so far out, but that will change if Kane doesn’t go back home in one piece.”
“You really think this ‘good witch’ can fix this?” I asked.
“Greta seemed sure. I mean, she came here, and I told her that I’d already sent Kane over there on a boat with Rosie, Tara and Fern. He’s handcuffed, and I gave them a big old blanket to cover him up in case the sun came up early and fried him. With that full moon making an unexpected appearance last night, I didn’t want to take any chances,” Effie explained. “But yeah, I told Greta what I’d done, and she shrugged, so that seemed like a positive sign.”
“She shrugged?” I moaned. Oh boy. “We’re doomed.”
“Hey, we only might be doomed,” Fitz added. “You’ve got to go with the glass-half-full approached to these things.” I rolled my eyes.
Would the tea that Sage had given me be good enough that I could put all of this out of my mind and get a night of sleep? I could only hope. Maybe I could find something stronger in the kitchen when I got home.
“What are you going to do tonight?” Kate asked. “Big plans with Miller? Or Ryder? I don’t know where you’re at.” She was teasing me, but I wasn’t in the mood. She sensed that and sat down beside me. “You got a killer arrested, you solved Susan’s murder! Today has had some wins.”
“I know that, but I think I was better off two days ago before this all got started,” I said.
“Miller will cool off,” she assured me. “Sorry, I know you don’t like it when I look in your head, but I’m trying to help.”
I knew that. The people in this room, apart from Fitz, were people I could rely on. Ryder and Miller felt too unpredictable, all they seemed to do was confuse the situation and if this vampire thing ran the risk of bringing federal agents to our island then I needed to focus.
“There’s no full moon tonight,” Brielle remarked.
“I guess Ryder fixed the weather spell,” I shrugged. I realized that this meant Miller didn’t need to be in his cage. I should go and speak to him and get everything off my chest. At the very least I should clue him in to the Kane problem. “I’ve got somewhere to be,” I announced.
“Do you want one of us to go with you?” Effie asked.
“You’re in no fit state to go anywhere,” I chuckled.
“For the millionth time, this isn’t my blood!” she said, pointing at her stained clothing.
“Who’s is it then?” Kate asked.
“Honestly, I’m not even sure. I had a knife at one point, Fern did a cartwheel… it was crazy,” Effie laughed.
“We should check the CCTV!” Kate laughed. “I’d pay to see that!”
“Vampires don’t show up on cameras, dummy,” Effie said. Kate made an ‘oh yeah’ expression, as if this was in fact common knowledge.
“On that note…” I smiled. I walked out into the night air and felt a cold chill on my skin. It wasn’t a long walk to Miller’s place, but I considered getting a taxi there. The second the thought crossed my mind, a car rolled to a stop in front of me. Wes was behind the wheel, smiling at me and waving for me to get in.
“You want a taxi, I’m your man,” Wes grinned. Was he a mind reader too? Or was this just a coincidence?
“Sure,” I shrugged. Why fight the weirdness, right?
“Where are you headed tonight? Late dinner? Karaoke? Down to the marina?” he guessed.
“Miller’s place,” I replied.
“Everyone’s headed there tonight,” he laughed. What did that mean? I sank into the seat and closed my eyes. I should have mentioned to Kate or Effie that I’d had a vision before I’d gone back to the café. I’d seen blood on my hand, I’d known that Effie was in trouble. What was happening to me?
I twirled some hair around my fingers, looking at the blue streak that seemed to have gotten larger since the last time I looked at it.
“What’s eating you?” Wes asked. “You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind.”
“How do you manage to be in a good mood all of the time?” I replied. “I feel like I’ve never seen you have an off-day. Do you have a secret?”
He laughed loudly for a few seconds, then made eye contact with me in the rear-view mirror. “Tell me what the problem is, and I’ll give you a solution.” He waited for me to speak.
“Er…” How much should I tell Wes? “I’ve got boyfriend problems, I guess that’s the easiest way to put it.” I figured it was best to keep the vampire stuff quiet for now.
“Get rid of him. Ghost him. No contact. Cut him out,” Wes said, reeling off suggestions rapidly. “If someone is making your life harder, you don’t owe them anything. Your priority is you!”
“I wasn’t expecting such a cut-throat response from you,” I said, laughing to myself as I figured he was joking.
“You’re torn between Miller and Ryder, right?” he asked. I said nothing, just blinked a few times and pretended I hadn’t heard him ask. “I’ll take your silence as a ‘yes’. You need to step back and let the situation play out. If you give it time, the right choice will make itself obvious.”
“That’s not terrible advice,” I said.
“Don’t sound so surprised. Anyway, you’re here,” he announced, gesturing to Miller’s house as the car rolled to a stop. “I’m a speedy driver, but you get to your destination safe every time!”
“Thanks, Wes,” I smiled, handing over some cash to cover my fare.
“No sweat!”
I climbed out and watched as the car drove off. I hadn’t planned out what I was go
ing to say, but I figured the words would come once I saw Miller. The lights were on in his house. I walked towards the door and knocked, it seemed more appropriate than just walking in. I could hear footsteps approaching and I felt a giddiness at the thought of seeing him. Focus.
Wes said I should step back. I wasn’t under the impression that Wes was some sort of oracle, but he said that the right choice would become clear if I gave it time. I figured he was right. Why was I even here? I took a step back from the door. Had I come here to breakup with him? What was I doing?
The door handle rattled, and I felt my mind go blank. I did not have a plan for this, I should have just gone home to my own bed. When the door opened, I found myself in such shock that I couldn’t process what I was seeing.
I was looking at a woman that could have jumped straight out of a magazine. She was beautiful, an athletic frame and delicate feminine features that were enhanced with a lick of dark lipstick and winged eyeliner. I felt suddenly very self-conscious about the knee-to-ankle bandages on my leg that were visible beneath my tattered shorts.
“Wh—” I tried to speak. “You…”
“Can I help you?” she asked. “Are you lost?”
“No.” I replied. Don’t you dare be beautiful and polite at the same time. “I’m looking for Miller.”
“Oh,” she smiled. “Come on in.” I stepped into the house and listened out for signs that Miller was around, but she started talking again almost immediately. “Would you like a drink? I’ve got some cold sodas in the fridge.”
“I’ll have a soda,” I nodded.
“Be right back,” she grinned.
What on earth was going on? This wasn’t what I had expected to find, some random woman in Miller’s house was being nice to me and pretending as if this was a totally normal interaction. Did she know who I was? Did I know who she was? Had Miller ever mentioned a sister?
I’d offered to come here, and he’d told me he’d see me in the morning. Something wasn’t right.
“Do you know where he is?” I called out. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket to see if he had called me, or maybe sent a text. Nothing.
