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

  Anymore, I bought properties and kept them, turning them into rentals with occasional sales to keep my debts low.

  The birdsong was lively as we walked down the lane. I didn’t speak to the birds but there was a little something between them and me.

  “The property itself is about fifty acres. As you know, Longfolk has hidden space here, so we have a lot of room to run that we wouldn’t otherwise have. If you live here, you’re welcome to shift and run in the woods, but the animals are protected, so no hunting. Not that Ty Halbert follows that rule.”

  I jerked my thumb at one of the tinier one-bedroom cottages where Ty had already left for the day. He was a fox shifter and only hunted rabbits and birds which was why I hadn’t kicked him out. The punk drove his motorcycle every day it wasn’t raining and revved it every single time he passed my place. I’d heard it that morning but slipped right back into sleep. I don’t know why he thought that wouldn’t work against him, I was going to raise his rent the next time his lease was up or kick him out.

  Ulrich just nodded, not saying anything as I led him to one of the most secluded cottages. It was at the back of the grounds, near our section of private woods and it was one of the two four bedroom places.

  “It’s big,” he said as he stood outside the fence.

  “There aren’t any open cottages other than this one. You could eventually downgrade, but the back of the property is nice. No one has a lease coming up any time soon and most of my renters have been here for a long time.”

  I explained about the utilities, grounds, as he walked around the outside of the cottage, checking the fence.

  “Is it ok if I make the fence more secure?”

  “It depends on what you want to do.”

  “I’ll draw something up before I bring the dogs over.”

  I opened the door and stepped back. It smelled like a bleach explosion in there. The last folks who had lived inside of here had been extra nasty.

  “I hadn’t been planning on renting this one out right away,” I told him. “Since it needs some work. I had intended to paint it and fix up the bathroom. You’ll be looking at a work-in-progress.”

  He just nodded, and I felt a little bit like a performing monkey. Except I’d felt his gaze on my backside more than once. For some reason, I had also felt that same gaze on the curve of my neck.

  “You’ll have to decide if you’re ok with workers coming in, or if you want another place, or maybe want to wait until it’s done. It will be probably two weeks before it is where I want it to be. The last folks were out and out gross, so there’s more to do than normal.”

  Ulrich didn’t say a word as I led the way up the stone walk I’d put in myself and past the flowers that I’d maintained. He just nodded as I talked, and I was getting to the point where I wanted to screech, so I pasted an even wider smile on my face and led him through the house. A great room like mine, two main floor bedrooms like mine. Unlike a loft, he had two upstairs bedrooms and a bath. It was more house than any one guy would need, but usually, Longfolk didn’t have a lot of housing options. If he wanted a place of his own, with big old dogs, he just might be at my mercy. Not a position I minded being in.

  Chapter 4

  “Where are you going?” Mrs. Brightly asked the next morning when I loaded up my truck after the paper route.

  She followed me, the sound of her house shoes flapping against the cement drive as I threw my backpack into the passenger seat. I slapped a note on my front door with my dad’s number if someone needed help. Mrs. Brightly snarled at the sign and said, “You’re supposed to keep regular hours.”

  “I do,” I said. “But I’ll be leaving early today and I’m not available on the weekends as we’ve discussed nearly every single weekend since I took over.”

  She knew something was up because I was wearing jeans, my sparkly silver rubber boots, and a long-sleeved henley. I preferred either a cami and pajama shorts or flirty dresses with heels. My in-betweens were pretty rare.

  I loaded my kayak into the back of my truck and my backpack that was loaded with food, drink, and emergency supplies. I had, of course, curled my hair and had my makeup on, but she knew me well enough to know when I was roughing it. I wasn’t, after all, wearing false lashes. Did I have makeup in my backpack? Maybe. But that was my business, wasn’t it?

  I grinned, winked, and hopped into my truck without answering. She was a nosy old biddy who called my grandparents at least two times a week talking about how I didn’t keep the soda machine stocked or that her mail had been mis-delivered.

  It didn’t seem to matter to her that they’d told her they weren’t involved anymore. Mrs. Brightly had been calling them since she’d moved in fifteen years ago, and she wasn't going to change that now.

  Mrs. Brightly tapped on my car window as I started up the truck. It was a sunshine yellow extended cab with an extended bed. It out-manned every other truck in the Crowe family and that fact filled me with a snarky sort of joy. I could probably pull a semi with it and the roar of my beast was loud enough to wake the dead.

  “Are you letting that big guy move in here?” Mrs. Brightly’s shrill voice somehow cut through the roar of the engine, I had to force myself to smile at her.

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “He looks dangerous.”

  “I imagine he is,” I said making sure my dimple flashed as I grinned at her. Then because I wasn’t totally a monster I added, “He’s a police officer, Mrs. Brightly. He’s only dangerous to bad guys.”

  She scowled at me and then said, “Good police officers don’t come to Longfolk, girl. They work in bigger cities.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “So you won’t be letting him live here?”

  “Oh no, he’s definitely allowed to live here if he wants to. Police officers have regular jobs which means regular paychecks.”

  She scowled at me and I started rolling my truck away from her. The antsy side-effect of hummingbird syndrome was hitting me hard even though I’d delivered papers that morning. I’d even pushed extra hard and cut my time by a quarter. It hadn’t mattered.

  I needed to head off another bout of HS, so I was thinking that I’d kayak along the edge of the barrier islands to one of the little inlets that were hard to reach and take a long hike up to the higher fairy fields.

  The key to keeping hummingbird syndrome in balance was listening to your body and budgeting your energy. You had to burn the excess and succumb to the ‘torpor’ when it hit. There were days that I snoozed in a hammock and days when I couldn’t stop moving. Today was going to be one of those crazy energy days. If I had too many of them in a row, that’s when I knew I was in trouble.

  Our part of the Isle of Hope, the hidden part, was much larger than the rest and there were other islands where the real harvesting goods were with witch ingredients. Seeded by my kin and other early settles and then left mostly uninhabited. It was possible to find full fields of fairy weed, let alone witch’s breath, or siren’s song. I planned to harvest at an excess and even camp if necessary.

  I didn’t have the weekend paper routes, and the next day was Saturday. I’d camp if I needed to and then pack it all out the next day. It was like Jinx said, leaving it behind was like leaving cash on the ground. I just couldn’t do it. I was wanting to pay off that house by the grade school.

  * * * * *

  When I parked at my usual spot, I heard a big truck pull up. Whoever it was—he was down by one of the local fishing spots, but I was out there to be by myself. I scowled at the rusted green thing, reminded myself that people were allowed to fish, and I was probably sending mean thoughts to someone’s grandpa.

  I made my way down to the shoreline with my pack and then went back for my kayak, leaving my truck locked up tight. Paddling along the coastline was easing the hummingbird syndrome energy riding me like a pony. I noticed the birds and the sound of the water, but mostly I was enjoying the way my body was easing.

  Though I could feel the HS backing off, I had a sense of the lion around the bend. I thought I might have a case of torpor hitting me soon. It was about due. I tended to nearly pass out and hibernate two to three times a year. I hated it, but I knew that I had my HS in pretty good balance compared to a lot of folks. Most chronic suffers of HS had bouts at least one time a month.

  If I paid attention to my body, I could delay mine and build up an excess of energy. That was a little bit like a superpower. If I worked it right, using the energy, I’d have my stock of tinctures and potions for the winter prepared before the torpor hit.

  The hike made my quads burn, but I was loving the silence. I felt almost as though I could hear the thoughts of the trees and grass. That was crazy. I was a witch, but it took meditation to commune with nature. Even before the HS had gotten worse, I hadn’t had that in me.

  I caught fairies and then left them hanging while I worked my way through the meadow harvesting and examining. I was humming as I worked. The fairies were cursing up a storm as their dust was snatched away, and the added background noise made things seem normal. The truth was fairy dust was the dander from fairy skin. Nasty when you think about it which was why we didn’t think about it too much. Pretty sure that was why some witch centuries before picked an innocuous name for it. Regardless as fully magical beings, even their skin flakes were one of the most effective magic ingredients.

  I had several bags of fairies going while I gathered fairy weed and witch’s breath along with siren song. The sun grew higher and I was sweating when I found my way to my favorite pool and stripped down to my undies to take a dip. The birdsong came and went as I washed and I frowned up at the trees, but the day was so hot, and I was so tired, I didn’t think much of it.

  I washed off my face makeup and w
et my hair, winding my long curls—which would frizz horribly—up into a bun. I slowly dressed, letting the sun dry out my undies while I rubbed sunscreen into my skin and shook out the clothes I’d brought, putting on sweats, a tank top, and a hoodie.

  I made my way back to the fairy field, calling to the guys I’d robbed before and saw them peek out their heads when I scrunched a bag of M&Ms. No one knew that I’d made sort of friend-enemies with the fairies in this field, but I’d been coming here since I was eleven and back then, I had wanted nothing more than to persuade one to come live in my bedroom and teach me all the dirty words they knew.

  I made my camp in the meadow with the fairies while I let them free. Several of them had things to say that weren’t repeatable but when I shared my food with them—I’d purposefully brought them a large bag of M&Ms they forgave me. We made marshmallow and M&M s’mores and roasted chicken on skewers while we chatted. I’d hiked in chips and jerky since fairies loved salty-sweet. The moon was hidden by cloud-cover but that just made the romance of the island, the fire, and the open air all the more tangible.

  We were chit-chatting about the harassing nature of lightning bugs and general evilness of crickets when one of them stood up, turned, and skittered away. Within seconds, the half-dozen fairies who’d been nibbling with me and telling me the local gossip disappeared.

  It spooked me hard and then I heard a skittering in the bushes.

  “It’s a fox,” I told myself, hoping it was true. I pulled out my phone and sent out a text just in case I was about to die.

  Ava: If I don’t show up tomorrow, look for my body on Morgana’s Hideaway.

  Jinx: WTF

  Ava: I don’t know I was sharing treats with fairies and then they disappeared.

  Jinx: Get out!

  Ava: I hiked and kayaked in, I have a lot of stuff with me, and it’s stupider to get spooked by birds and leave in the dark than it is to stay.

  Jinx: OMG. I’m not going to sleep. Answer every time I message you.

  I flicked my fingers against my palm, a rush of energy hitting me hard, but I couldn’t just get up and run. The energy stabbed at me, and I bounced, trying to burn through it. It wasn’t enough. I tried to close my eyes and find my center, but I found myself only listening for someone coming at me with an axe.

  OMG, why did I think that? OMG, why am I here alone? I bet that Levi would have come with me. My little brother barely ever worked and loved this stuff. Why was I so stupid? I bounced, doing little mini-squats. My heart was in my throat, and I wanted to be in my own bed more than I could say.

  I started at every single noise in the woods over the course of the night. It wasn’t the noise really that was scary. It was the shift in the fairies. I’d been doing this trip a few times a year since I was a kid. Every single time, the fairies snuck into my tent, went through my stuff, stole any unwarded food, before finally curling up in dirty piles around me. We were frenemies of sorts; me trapping them in bags on occasion, them biting me as often as they could while secretly excited to share a fire and a meal.

  The fact that they didn’t try to get into my tent left me so tense that when the sun rose, I hurt. My back hurt, my fingers, hurt, my vision was blurring and I knew I’d be facing fat case of the torpor soon. Usually, I could burn through the energy and keep ahead of the pain until the torpor hit. This tension from the fear combined with the energy I couldn’t expel was going to be terrible.

  I sighed and tried to be happy that the torpor would hit before the cruise. In between the excess of energy and the coming, debilitating exhaustion was achy fevers, marathon eating, and general nastiness that ended with having me having to apologize later.

  After a tight of racketing tension, I put in my headset and called Jinx. I broke camp faster than I had ever done before. The wariness hadn’t faded. If anything, it had gotten worse.

  “Are you alive or is this the person that killed my best friend?”

  “It’s me,” I snapped.

  “Well….” Jinx heard the pain in my voice and sighed. “Can you get back ok?”

  “I have energy to burn anyway,” I told her, trying and failing to pretend like it didn’t hurt to move.

  “Your brothers are on the boat. They’re coming for you.”

  I’d have made some nasty comment about tattling, but I wanted that ride. I listened to her talk about work and idiots as I hiked down to the beach. I made it about halfway back to my kayak and all was silent again.

  “Holy magic,” I breathed. I could hear the fear in my voice and heard in a distant sort of way, Jinx talking to me. But things were silent. Way too silent. I knew that there should be chittering of squirrels, but it was almost as though even the wind knew better than to move right then. I froze, like a bird before a snake, only I couldn’t see the snake. I could, however, sense him.

  Eyes? The attention of something. Someone? Were there still panthers in Georgia?

  “Ava! Ava! Ava! I swear by my magic if I hear you get murdered I will personally rain down destruction on your grave.”

  “Oh my magic,” I whispered.

  “Run,” she demanded.

  I picked up my pace, not quite running. If I raced to the kayak, with each step stabbing me in my joints, I would lose the ability to flee when I needed it.

  “I’m coming,” Jinx said as though she’d ever get here in time.

  Maybe Levi and Oaken would. Maybe—I didn’t even know—maybe this was all in my head? Only I knew it wasn’t. I hadn’t intended to run, but soon I was moving so fast that I wasn’t even looking so much at the ground as just moving full tilt down the trail I’d hiked dozens of times.

  I heard a shot and dropped to the ground. The sound of it echoed through the woods while birds screeched all around me.

  “Was that a gunshot?” Jinx demanded.

  A second shot echoed and then a third.

  OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG! My headset was askew, and I shoved it back in with shaking hands.

  “Was that a gunshot? Talk to me!”

  Those shots had been so much closer than I wanted to admit. Jinx’s slew of curses didn’t track my attention. I pulled out the headset, shoving it in my pocket, so I could hear what was happening around me without cutting her off. I felt a pressing need to hide, and I wasn’t going to fight it.

  Birds had burst into flight overhead and they hadn’t gone back to talking to each other. I crawled from the path into the undergrowth and then further, winding my way off the path and into the trees.

  Minutes later I heard food steps and I held my breath, dropping to the ground. They went pounding past and I shuddered as I moved further into the trees. Were they looking for me? I hadn’t been quiet, and I’d lit a fire. Something had spooked the fairies. Whoever had gone running by must have been close enough to scare the fairies.

  I slowly put the headset back in and breathed, “I’m alive.”

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  “I’m hiding. Someone just went running by. Is Oaken coming?”

  “Oaken and Levi.”

  “I…you…crap…you should call the police. It’s probably just poachers, but…”

  “On it,” She said and then said to someone else, “Give me your phone.”

  I could hear the phone call, but I had pulled the headset mostly out of my ear. If whoever had shot that gun was a real tracker, I’d left a path that anyone with half an ability could follow. Every sound, every breaking of a twig, every odd sounding bird call, every silence left me a shaking mess.

  Chapter 5

  I heard the howling of dogs and crossed my fingers that they belonged to the police and not the bad guy.

  I told myself the gunshots didn’t have anything to do with me. I hadn’t seen anyone else on the island. When something pushed through the undergrowth where I was hiding, I held my breath and then let it out in a big whoosh when I saw a dog with big brown eyes.

  “Hello there,” I said.

  He huffed at me, and I held out a shaking hand. He sniffed me, rumbling in the back of his throat. I slowly pulled my hand back, but he dropped to his butt and wagged his tail once. He wore a vest with a badge on it identifying him as a police dog.

  I heard my brother, Oaken, call my name. I crawled out of the trees, shouting back. I had stayed still for too long with the extra energy hitting me, and I could barely move. I groaned and tried again as Oaken, Levi, and Ulrich burst through the trees.