Magic Before Mischief (The Magic Before Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  With an awkward smile, I said, “Listen, I know you probably don’t believe me. But the secret is from Theodore and the rest of those Crowe bastards. The moment I tell someone my secret, well…no.”

  Theo set my second beer down on the table and flicked my ear as he walked away.

  “You don’t like Crowes?” The shifter asked. “Why?”

  “Prying, judgmental, interfering, know-it-all…"

  “She is one,” Jinx told them, cutting me off. “She’s their black sheep. You can see the rebel in her eyes under all that mascara.”

  “So, who are you?” I asked them. “We’re failing at being southern Jinx. Where’s our hospitality? The next thing you know we’ll be caught wearing white sandals after Labor Day.”

  “Ulrich Bryant,” the shifter said, glancing at his friend and then shaking his head. He was drinking a bottle of coke and the other dude had a big ole glass of sweet tea.

  “Hank Smith,” the second guy said.

  His familiar face, matched with his name, and it all came back to me. My gaze narrowed on him and then I said, “Finn’s friend? Back in high school?”

  Finn was one of my many, many cousins. My grandparents had nine kids. All of whom had married and stayed in Longfolk. I was suffocated by family, but I guess I did it to myself by not moving away.

  “Where are you from, Ulrich? You don’t sound southern.”

  “I’m not.”

  His gaze flit over Jinx and I like we were trashy. A part of me wanted to confront him for treating us like crap and the other part of me was just glad that he was immune to that damned siren blood.

  He continued, “I moved here a couple of weeks ago from Alaska.”

  Our pizza arrived and I ignored Hank flirting with me while Ulrich tried to ignore us. They’d ordered a meat lovers with olives. Jinx and I had one of the specials which was topped with pepperoni, sausage, jalapeños, mushrooms, and red pepper flakes. It had been my creation back in high school when I’d worked here and Theo had kept it on the menu after it became something of a cult favorite.

  “Ava,” Theo said a few minutes after we finished our pizza. “Bobby called in again. Any chance you could help out? I’ll comp your dinner.”

  “Sure,” I said, “I need to wait to drive anyway. Jinx, this doesn’t let you off the bet.”

  She shot me a nasty look and snarled, “See you later, cheapskate.”

  I washed dishes until after midnight then pocketed my share of the tips since they shared across the staff. Theo handed me $40.00 on top of the tips and walked me to the door. He glanced around the parking lot as though a vampire might jump from the bushes on the hidden side of the Isle of Hope. Yeah, right. He left after a second, calling a thanks as he departed.

  The moon was high and there was a sense of something in the air. I breathed in slowly trying to figure it out then exhaled nice and slow. I couldn’t quite place it. Something good? Something bad? Something wicked? Something exciting? I wasn’t sure. But whatever it was. It was coming.

  Chapter 3

  I woke to the thump of papers on my doorstep. I’d gotten up a bit late, so I cooled my coffee with extra cream, guzzled it, checked for my water bottle, and ran down the steps. It was 3:00am, and I’d gone to bed at 1:00am, but it wasn’t unusual for me to catch naps here and there. Hummingbird syndrome was terrible and it ruined me for a normal life, but there were benefits. Things like needing less sleep and being hyperactive let me get a lot done all at once. Getting knocked down by the torpor and sleeping for days had lost me more than one job and flunked me out of more than one class.

  The town of Longfolk, GA was on the Isle of Hope and hidden by magic. Beyond us were several other hidden barrier islands. Some populated, some not, but all hidden by magic to let us live freely. Longfolk was about a third human, a third witches, and a third other races. The magic only kept you out if you didn’t know our side of the island was there or if you had ill-intent which let folks like me live as we wanted.

  I kept my bike on my porch, and I loaded up my saddlebags, basket, and backpack with the papers. I’d painted the Sweet Rider with fresh pink paint, fairy dust, and warded it against thievery and accident. Even still, I added my helmet and started off. By the time, I’d made it back, I decided to eat my leftovers from the night before. Pizza for a 5:00am breakfast seemed like perfection, I ate a piece, drank a glass of milk, and curled back up into my bed before I could let the allure of my phone, emails for orders, and writing projects take over my mind.

  The next thing I knew, I was waking to the sound of Mama letting herself into my place.

  “Ava,” she called as she tapped on my doorway. “Love, why are you still sleeping? Are you ok? Is everything all right?”

  “Just resting after the paper route.” I got up, following the scent of the coffee she’d started and found her sitting at my farmhouse table next to a pink box of bakery goods.

  “Oooh,” I said, opening it and finding the jalapeño bagel.

  “I heard that Theodore’s is hiring.” Mama handed me the bread knife already knowing I would go for the bagel. “Theo knows about your little issue. He’ll help you.”

  The way my mom referred to hummingbird syndrome as my ‘issue’ which made me want to elbow her in the throat on my bad days. Until me, Mama was one of the deniers of hummingbird syndrome. She was like those d-bag doctors who didn’t believe in fiber myalgia because it was an issue that affected mostly women. Then she had me and her instinct to deny it fought with the reality of my struggles.

  “Are they?” I spread my bagel with cream cheese and tried to keep my voice bright until my coffee kicked in.

  My mama showed up with food at least twice a week. As soon as I rose to find my smoked fish, Mama got up too. She opened my cupboards, glancing through and judging me as I poured coffee and started drinking it black.

  “Ava darling, you know you need to keep more food than this for when you issue kicks in.”

  Her nice way of saying when my metabolism ramped up, I went on a huge bender of hyperactivity and gorging and then passed out for anywhere from four days to two weeks.

  My eye twitched a little bit as Mama talked and I found myself debating what would win—caffeine and self-control over my mouth or Mama’s ability to drive me into snapping at her. The last thing I needed was her crying to Daddy and him showing up on my doorstep next.

  “Theodore has a good thing going with his restaurant. You used to say how much you made in tips. I know you don’t want to work a desk but waiting tables would keep you moving.”

  “Mama…”

  I knew she hated how my illness effected my life, I knew it was love that drove her to say these things, I knew that she hated how I struggled and wanted to make it better. But I also knew that when she’d envisioned my life when I was little, she’d imagined my cousin, Emerson, with her law degree, and her white bread fiancé and her big house. Mama kept trying to fix me and was never quite able to see I was happy.

  “You have a master’s degree, Ava. You graduated and had all that ambition and now all you do is sad side jobs. A paper route? For a 24-year-old? Aren’t you embarrassed?”

  I was guzzling coffee at that point. I burned my mouth but powered through until I was on my next cup. With this one, I dared to take the time to doctor it up with an excess of creamer.

  Mama frowned at the fattening creamer and again as I took a long guzzle of my second cup of coffee as though I were drinking the waters of life.

  It was only after I felt the beginning effects of coffee—possibly a placebo effect at this point—that I dared to add some of the smoked black cod and cream cheese to my jalapeño bagel.

  I ate silently, trying not to notice Mama wiping down my already clean kitchen counters. She had pulled out a sheet of paper and was making notes for groceries as she dug through my fridge. To keep myself in the best possible condition, I had to eat regularly—I didn’t have to eat healthy, but I had to feed my higher metabolism, rest regularly, take my potions, and exercise.

  I tried to ignore the grocery list as I said, “Mama, why would I be ashamed of a paying job? I make half as much as Levi does with the paper route, and I do it in two hours. When you add in that I’d be exercising anyway, it’s pretty much free money.”

  “Levi doesn’t have a master’s degree.” Mom scowled at me.

  Why did she insist on believing I’d be able to hold down a normal job? For the love of magic, she didn’t like any of my side-hustles even though she had no idea how well I did with them. The thing was, I really did like my jobs. I might have followed this route because of my HS, but it also enabled me to discover how happy it made me to work on things I love, take naps when I chose, and do things like wake up and decide to go gather herbs one day and then spend the next slowly watching the flames of potions while I binge-watched Criminal Minds.

  Mama, like myself, was striving for patience when she said, “Rowan is a nurse. In a town like Longfolk, they’ll understand your issue. And being high energy would help you with nursing. You could really be excellent at nursing.”

  “Blood makes me sick,” I said around my bagel.

  I just kept myself from crossing my arms over my chest. If Mama knew she was getting to me, she might go for the gullet and try to get me to promise to just consider applying at such and such a place. I couldn’t let her trap me.

  “Emerson is a lawyer.” Mama tried.

  “She’s so well-suited for it,” I said with just enough of an edge for Mama to read slimy as a snake in my tone.

  Her reproachful expression made me squirm as Mama said evenly, “Emerson worked hard for that degree. She has a successful law office and she’s engaged.”

  “Mama, it is lovely that she found such a good job that suits her
so well. I heard that she wasn’t engaged yet.”

  “All but,” Mama hissed.

  “Still. Let’s not count Emerson’s chicks before they hatch.”

  Someone knocked on the door and I closed my eyes in relief. I crossed to it as Mama called, “You aren’t really going to answer the door like that are you?”

  Well, now I was. I ignored the fact that I was curvy and wearing only a cami and pajama shorts when I swung the door wide. The sun shone down on the person on my porch obscuring his face in shadow so I was unable to determine who it was. I squinted and stepped back.

  “Oh, it’s you.”

  Mama came up behind me and handed me a huge fisherman’s sweater. “Ava’s not quite awake yet.” Her tone was apologetic, but my look was not.

  Ulrich Bryant, the mountain of a shifter, I’d had dinner with last night said, “Ahhh…I… assumed showing up now would be acceptable since it’s operating hours.”

  “It is ok,” I said as I dropped the sweater over my head. “What can I do for you?”

  “I heard there was an opening in the cottages. I didn’t realize that…”

  I grinned cheekily at him from behind my mama and said, “That I ran this place?”

  He cleared his throat, but his face remained impassive. I grinned even wider as Mama’s bright blue eyes narrowed on him. She hated that I wasn’t living up to my potential but she’d be damned if anyone else treated me as anything other than one of the Crowe princesses.

  “Mama,” I said before she starting spitting sugar-coated insults at him, “This is Ulrich Bryant. He’s partners with Hank Smith on the police force. Theo made us share a table last night when his restaurant was exploded after the football team and their fans came.”

  Mama’s gaze narrowed further and I said, “I might have teased him a bit about being bear shifter.”

  Mama’s angry gaze turned to me and she asked low and even, “Why is that funny?”

  I winced and fought back the urge to run. That particular tone of voice had sent me running more than once in my childhood.

  “It’s not,” I said, almost sweating. “No, ma’am. There’s nothing wrong with being a shifter.”

  “I didn’t think so.” Mama hadn’t lost that cool, even tone, and you almost had to lean in to hear her. A sure sign she was considering an abundance of wrath.

  “So you need a place? Thanks for the bakery stuff, Mama. I gotta work.” I stepped out of my place before Mama could stop me and waved frantically for Ulrich to follow.

  “I’ll be back with groceries,” Mama called, all sweetness and welcome now that she knew I was the one who had been in the wrong. Before we could escape, she halted Ulrich with a hand to his arm and immediately began bombarding him with questions.

  “I have food,” I shot back though I knew she’d ignore me. I just needed to be able to say I told her not to if it ever came up again.

  It took Mama a good ten minutes to get Ulrich’s history before she left, and I had no doubt one of my aunts would be hearing all about him before Mama drove away from the cottages. By the end of the day, they’d be matching him up in their minds to one of us poor, single Crowe girls.

  “I do need a place.” Ulrich looked a little dazed as Mama blew him a kiss.

  I snorted and laughed. “You need some coffee to counteract my mama?”

  He stretched his neck and said, “You know? Maybe.”

  I led him back into my place and he looked around openly. Given he was a cop, was he noticing things that others didn’t? I looked at my place with new eyes. Like all the Lavender Lane Cottages, it looked like a mini-plantation with a big porch, white pillars, and a stone walk. My cottage was a light gray with black shutters and white pillars. Unlike the others, it came with a second-floor loft that I used for my workroom. I also had a balcony that was lined with wrought-iron gates between the pillars. At Halloween, I hung skeletons from those. During the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons, they were wrapped in garland and lights with a wreath between each set of pillars.

  Mine was one of the larger cottages, so I had two good-sized bedrooms and a large open area that held my kitchen, dining room, and living room. The walls of my living room were lined with built-in bookshelves with occasional openings for art and one for my TV. The room also housed a victorian style purple velvet couch, a wide gray leather chair where I spent most of my time, and another funky chair covered in fabric that looked like script writing. I’d embroidered those words in myself, and the piece was one of the many wards I’d put on my house.

  That particular one had taken hours, but I’d been on one of those HS benders that had ended with my sleeping for eight and a half days. Before I’d reached the end of the burst of energy, I’d recovered and embroidered the chair, turned the closet under the stairs into an extension of my library, painted the entirety of my cottage, and gotten half-way through building myself a canopy bed that looked like four trees.

  “Did you want one of the places here?” I asked him as I poured him coffee at my farmhouse table. I automatically added creamer and some mocha without thinking and then shrugged and handed it over. If he didn’t like it, he’d get over it. I had yet to meet a shifter who didn’t like chocolate. “Or did you have your eye on one of the other SH Management properties?”

  He blinked in the face of me turning to business. I bet he thought I was all fluff. I grinned as he caught up with me. “I hadn’t been aware there were more places. I just was told to come see you a few days ago, but this is my first day off since then. Honestly, I almost didn’t. You have some pretty weird hours.”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t explain.

  I grabbed my iPad and flicked to my file of open properties. There was an out-of-town cabin that was pretty rustic but nestled right back into trees near the protected forests of the island. There was an opening here at Lavender Lanes and there was a two-story charmer over by the grade school. The apartment complex I owned was completely full as were the five other properties.

  “I have two big dogs,” he admitted, “It’s making finding a rental difficult. They’re both well-mannered, but maybe a little scary looking.”

  “I have to meet all the dogs,” I told him. “If they pass me, I don’t care if they’re big or scary looking.”

  He frowned for a second and then I added, “Our flat policy is no pets, but we make exceptions.” Which was how I got away with turning down folks who had the mean tiny dogs and letting in the Newfoundlands.

  “I’d like to see all the places? And maybe bring my dogs by?”

  There was something in his tone that made me shiver. Again I felt that whisper of a something. I didn’t think it had to do with him, and any flashes of foretelling had often left me more irritated than right. No doubt this was gonna be one of those times.

  We decided on viewing the one here since apparently the grade school didn’t sound fun and he didn’t want to be out of town. When we walked down the lane, me in my flip-flops, him in his big brown boots, he was right on my steps.

  The curtain of Mrs. Brightly’s cottage flipped as we went passed, and I could see her shake her head at me. I didn’t need an explanation of what she thought. She disapproved of the sweater that was so long it was iffy whether I was wearing anything else.

  “These trees,” he breathed, “they’re astounding.”

  I glanced up. Lavender Lane was full of ancient oaks grown by the magic of my grandparents. They’d never lived here, always intending these as rentals, but they never did things halfway. I loved the touch. The feel of their magic on my skin made Lavender Lane more than just someplace I managed, it made them home. There was at least one oak in the yard of every cottage, and the private lane itself was lined with two rows of trees that arched over the lane forming a tunnel of trees.

  The land was all owned by me, though no one knew that except my grandparents since this had been my first property investment that I’d kept. I’d bought two houses before Lavender Lane, flipped them for profit, and then I’d used all of the profits for this property. They’d let me buy directly from them while I’d worked my hiney off to pay it down. Two more flipped houses after buying Lavender Lane, and I’d been able to purchase the property with a traditional loan. Five more flipped houses after that, and I’d paid off the loan.