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

  Oaken took in my situation at once and hauled me ruthlessly to my feet.

  “Are you ok?”

  I was gasping and whooshing through the pain. Oaken didn’t touch me and Levi kept Ulrich back when he’d have tried to help me. “Give her a minute.”

  Slowly I pushed myself straight from where I’d curled into myself.

  “Something is very wrong,” I said. “I assume Jinx told you I heard gunshots and things were weird.”

  “With the fairies acting off, I’d say so,” said Mary Michelle from behind the guys. We’d gone to school together and never liked each other much ever since junior year when I’d flaked out on an assignment right after my first case of hummingbird syndrome. “I thought you were upset over nothing until Jinx wouldn’t stop talking about the fairies reaction to what was happening on the island.” Her expression said she still wasn’t convinced.

  I rolled my eyes. Mary Margaret was one of those people who didn’t really believe in HS, like the jerks who didn’t believe in fibromyalgia or ADHD. She probably still saw me as the “privileged Crowe princess who expected to smooth-talk her way out of whatever trouble she caused.”

  I didn’t argue, I just slowly started stretching out my limbs.

  “You all right?” Ulrich asked when I whimpered.

  “The torpor is gonna hit me in a few days, I’d guess. Things will suck until then.”

  He blinked and Levi said, “Ava has HS.”

  I froze a little, waiting for a reaction, but he simply said, “My ex’s sister had that. It sucks.”

  He wasn’t wrong, so I let Oaken help me down the trail while Levi followed. Mary Michelle wasn’t pleased we’d left her up there, but Oaken shot her a look that shut her up. Those two had history, but he’d never explained what it was.

  No doubt she’d go off looking for evidence that Ava was freaking out over nothing.

  My brother’s boat was just a small thing that didn’t have a cabin or a place to be warm, but I’d been on it so often, it felt a little like home. Levi threw my backpack onto the boat and went for my kayak.

  Ulrich had come along with us and before we could even think about leaving, he asked, “Tell us what happened.”

  I recapped the previous day starting with leaving my place through being found in the woods by the dog.

  “Are you sure it was a gunshot?”

  “Yes,” I said. “There were three.”

  “And you were talking to…” He was cut off by the howling of the dog.

  We all turned to face the woods and then Ulrich said, “Excuse me.” He went jogging into the woods and I sighed in relief.

  “They found something,” Levi said.

  I rolled my eyes and then sat down on the deck of the boat and put my legs out. Slowly, despite the pain, I leaned forward and stretched my back and legs.

  “I’ll set your hot tub up for you,” Oaken said when I whimpered again as another rolling cramp crossed over my body.

  I didn’t reply because I didn’t have speaking in me right then.

  “Turn over little sis,” Oaken said.

  I glanced up and then wormed onto my stomach and shuddering as he ruthlessly dug his thumbs into the knots that had formed in my back muscles.

  He worked on me while Levi paced the shoreline, talking to Jinx. She had a thousand questions that he couldn’t answer, but since I was ok, Jinx was starting to calm down.

  “I’ll be by the second I get off,” she said when he put the phone by my face.

  “This is what comes from having a day job,” I said.

  “I’m glad you’re ok. If you die on me, I’ll kill you.”

  “Ok,” I told her. I whimpered as Oaken found one of the knots at the base of my spine. He pressed on it until it released, but I was crying by the time it was over.

  “Ava needs to go home,” Levi said. “We’re leaving.”

  Oaken left me laying on the deck of the boat while he started the boat and sent us back to the Isle of Hope. I flopped onto my back, trying to ignore the jostling of my body across the water and wished for release. The journey was terrible, but when I got home, they got me to my hot tub with my potioned bath salts and the pain started to fade. Especially when I combined a muscle relaxer, painkillers, and a couple of potions. By the time that I was semi-blurry from all the meds Jinx showed. My brothers took the chance to go get some burgers while Jinx got me into pajamas and a robe. She brushed out my hair while I flopped down onto the couch.

  “I was so freaked out,” I told her.

  “I couldn’t sleep either,” she told me.

  Jinx flopped onto the couch next to me as soon as my hair was tangle free.

  “I always know it’s bad when you don’t even care about skincare.” She got up and got me my caddy of stuff and I started working in my serums, creams, and potions while I reiterated everything that happened.

  My stomach growled and Jinx went for snacks, digging through my cupboards until she came back with smoked fish, cream cheese, crackers, chips, and jerky.

  “You gorge,” she told me, “I’ll look on in envy.” She shoved the chips aside when I offered the bag to her. “Has anyone called your mom yet?”

  I shook my head.

  “She’ll be mad if she finds out you had a bout without her. You know she keeps her freezer stocked for this. I bet she has cheesecake.”

  There was a knock on the door and I called, “Come in” as Jinx said, “I bet your brothers told her, and it’s cheesecake. Or maybe chocolate mouse cake. Or carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.”

  I was surprised, I figured they’d tell Mom, but they’d wait until they were on the way out.

  When the door opened, Ulrich came in. He put his hands on his hips and said, “That was incredibly unsafe. Why isn’t your door locked?”

  I slowly pushed myself up and turned to face the door where Ulrich stood, blocking the light with his wide shoulders.

  “This is Longfolk,” Jinx said, glancing at me. We both remembered the gunshots, but—it was probably hunters, right?

  He had two big dogs behind him and he told them to sit. Immediately both of them dropped to their behinds. They seemed like the animal version of Ulrich—except of course, he was a shapeshifter.

  They were massive things with squished faces like pugs but burly and muscled.

  “Oh my magic,” I said from the couch. I held out a hand and they stayed in place. “May I pet them?”

  He clucked and the dogs trotted over while I sat up. I patted my lap and one of the dogs laid its massive head in my lap. “I’m in love,” I told him.

  “I’d like to leave them here with you,” he told me.

  Jinx glanced between me and Ulrich and then demanded, “Why?”

  “We found a body. There were some things that indicated he was up there because you were.”

  Jinx shivered and I realized I had goosebumps all over my body as well. I…hated everything about that statement.

  “I—” I licked my lips and said, “that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Why?” Ulrich asked, taking a seat across from me. He pulled out a notebook and suddenly the dogs didn’t make sense. He wasn’t here to introduce me to the dogs, he was here to interview me about this dead guy.

  The front door swung open and my brothers saw him there and then Levi said, “It’s a good thing we ordered Jinx a real burger and a veg burger since we didn’t know where she was on her vegetarian spectrum.”

  They split up the food as my mind raced around the idea that those gun shots meant that someone died.

  “I didn’t see anything,” I told Ulrich finally. He’d been handed a box with a burger and fries. The guys just automatically gave him the meat burger and then gave Jinx the veggie one.

  “What are we talking about?” Levi asked. He was already halfway through his burger while I fiddled with my fries.

  “Eat, Ava,” Oaken ordered. “If you hit the torpor without bulking, you’re screwed.”

  I took a bite of my double burger, double cheese with bacon, grilled mushrooms and onions. It was my usual bulking order and I sighed around it. It had sounded so good before I realized that someone had died while I hid in the woods. I had convinced myself the gunshots were poachers.

  Ulrich explained while Jinx ordered me through my burgers and fries.

  “So the guy died? We thought it was something like that didn’t we?” Levi asked. “What’s there to hunt on the island except faeries and birds?”

  I hadn’t let myself think about that and I shuddered as I realized there had been one more thing to hunt—people.

  Oaken glanced at Levi and then asked, “Why are you here?”

  “They think the dead guy was on the island because Ava was,” Jinx said, scowling at Ulrich who held up his hands defensively.

  “Ava always makes those trips last minute,” Levi said, stealing some of Jinx’s fries. “How would this guy know?”

  I was the one who answered, and the goosebumps on my skin had their own goosebumps when I did. “He’d have to be watching me. I don’t do anything on a schedule. If this dead guy was there because of me, he had to be following me.”

  Ulrich nodded and Oaken demanded, “Why do you think the dead guy was following her? What did he have that made you think that?”

  “Pictures,” Ulrich said flatly.

  “From the island?” Levi brother demanded. “Couldn’t they have both been hiking at the same time.”

  “More than that,” Ulrich said. He cleared his throat and then pulled out a stack of pictures. I went to grab for it, but my brother Levi snatched it from me.

  I elbowed him and took them and saw myself showing Ulrich the house. The picture was from behind and focused on where my legs peeked out from the over-siz
ed sweater. There was one of me having dinner with Jinx a few weeks ago. One with me and my mom talking outside of her place. She’d walked me to the car and stood in front of the door, so I couldn’t close it an escape. The expression on my face long-suffering. Did I really look like that when I talked to her?

  I knew I was distancing myself from what I was seeing, but holy magic! The next one had me choking back my dinner. It was me through my upstairs window. I was wearing only a red lace bra and jeans and was digging through my dresser for a shirt. Since I was leaning over you could see exactly how stacked I was. There was another of me snuggling Mrs. Brightly’s new kitten.

  One from just yesterday. I was in my undies taking a dip in the swim hole to wash off the sweat. The pictures were almost lewd even though I’d only been washing. I stared at myself for a second. Those were my boobs, my legs, my stomach. I’d never been bothered by the sight of them before. They’d always just been mine, but not now, not anymore. I felt as though something had been stolen from me that I hadn’t even known could be stolen.

  My hands were shaking when my brother, Oaken, took the pictures I’d already looked at from me. Each picture was followed by a curse and then he said, “Who died? Who was this guy?”

  “We’re still figuring that out.”

  I didn’t have anything to say. I found a few pictures of other girls, but none of those were…sexualized. It was like the way this guy saw me changed the way the light touched me. What had been innocent was somehow a little dirty. My hands kept shaking until the pictures scattered from my hands.

  “I’m sorry.” My voice sounded dead, and I just…couldn’t.

  Ulrich and my brothers picked up the pictures while Jinx bullied me through eating some more. I was yawning, but they’d all seen me when the torpor hit me hard and knew what happened if I hadn’t eaten heavily beforehand.

  Someone had been stalking me. But why the pictures of the others girls? Even if they weren’t as creepy? I pressed my thumbs under my eye, to try to stop the forming twitch. My muscles were so tense that it felt as though I’d run a marathon I hadn’t trained for. Despite that, I almost didn’t notice the rising. It was background music to the way my mind was flipping out.

  “And the guy who took those pictures is dead?” I finally asked.

  Ulrich nodded.

  “Who was he?”

  Ulrich paused, shuffling those giant shoulders and then said, “We don’t know yet. He wasn’t carrying ID. Mary Michelle is working on identifying him.”

  The way he glanced me over, with an intent look, was something I hadn’t seen before. Suddenly I realized what being alone on the island had meant. “I’m your suspect, aren’t I?”

  Ulrich cleared his throat and said, “The investigation is ongoing.”

  “Witching fabulous,” Jinx said while my brothers started shouting at Ulrich. I left them to it, hobbling out to my kitchen to get away from all of them. How could someone follow me around without me even knowing? How could they get all of those pictures? And why? There wasn’t anything special about me.

  Could someone have followed me that I didn’t know? Surely this wasn’t a case of randomly fixating on a person. Was this guy a supernatural too? Was there something about me he wanted? Besides the obvious? Despite novels and TV, the reality was that we supernatural types weren’t hunted. As a people, we hid pretty well. When you added in that regular humans preferred to believe in the rational and concrete, we kept our privacy.

  Chapter 6

  The patio behind Gramma’s house was lit with torches, fairy lights, and strands of purple bulbs that morphed the patio into a wonderland. The lawns were filled with round tables, covered in cloths, and topped with flowers and flickering candles. The draping oak trees with the creaking noise from age and magic seemed to make the place even more otherworldly even before you saw the flash of the lightning bugs, the fairy song, or the low-croaking of the bullfrogs. Gramma and Grandpa’s place was right on the river and the birds seemed to join into the song of magic.

  “Happy birthday, Gramma,” I said, kissing her cheek. I placed my gift on the table and added a tray of dark chocolate, peppermint cupcakes to the table of pot-lucked items and noted the other cupcakes that had been brought. My eye twitched a little bit. Those were Honey Cakes from the bakery placed on a tray. I pasted a smile on my face before I turned around and faced my family.

  “What’s this I hear about someone taking pictures of you?”

  “Nothing to worry about,” I lied.

  She was far too shrewd for such a stupid lie, so she just shot me a look that said I’d be explaining myself later.

  “Hey guys,” I said, winking at Daddy and scowling at my brothers out of the sheer joy of watching them frown back at me.

  Daddy’s expression was almost as worried as Gramma, but he wasn’t one for confrontations with a scene.

  I glanced around. My family was huge and too many of the gazes were stopping on me before finally moving on. I had no doubt that the rumors of what happened on the island had flown and that they were talking about ‘same old Ava.’

  Before you even got to great-grandchildren, there were almost fifty Crowes. By the time you added in significant others of the grandchildren, friends, and neighbors, there was far more than a hundred people here, and they all thought they knew me.

  “Oh no, didn’t you see I was bringing cupcakes?” Emerson’s smooth smile told me that she well-knew I’d signed up for them first.

  “I’m sure they’ll all go,” I said brightly, “Besides, Honey Cakes needs the business. It was good of you to give her some. I’m sure when folks hear where your cupcakes came from they’ll be stopping by in the coming days for another.”

  My sweet smile didn’t fade in the face of her freezing look. We both knew she’d been trying to pass them off as something she’d made. She’d probably even told Honey Melrose to not make them as fancy as she usually did.

  “I made those,” Emerson lied.

  “I’m sure you did,” I responded with enough of my own dramatic flair that anyone listening would know I was full of crap.

  “What’s this I hear about some guy following you around? Surely that can’t be real?” The way she said it said I wasn’t deserving of being stalked.

  I grinned and winked at her, lifting one of my homemade cupcakes to my mouth and then left without answering.

  I found her sister, Rowan, and plopped down next to her. “Where’s the booze?”

  “There’s a big bowl of artillery punch and a few trays of mint juleps over by the bar. But Uncle Freddie is monitoring them like a prison warden during yard time. Oaken and Levi have a side-bar with a couple of kegs and some whiskey. Only they went real cheap. Real, real cheap.”

  I nodded and crossed to the main bar. “Uncle Freddie, I declare,” I said, grinning. “How’d you get stuck as bartender?”

  “Anything for Mama,” he told me, scowling as I took two mint juleps. “Just one.”

  “Well, you sir, are a man among men.” I left before he could stop me, keeping both drinks, and sidling sideways past Auntie Jen Emily before she caught me. She’d been trying to get a spot in Lavender Lane Cottages, but I would be damned before family lived there and spied on my every move. Let alone the sharp look in her gaze that said she not only knew I had an opening, but she’d heard the details of the stalker and wanted to know more. Had it gotten out that I was a suspect?

  I handed Rowan one of the mint juleps and leaned back, crossing my legs.

  “That dress is divine,” she said.

  I glanced down and grinned. With my tan, the pink frothy sundress I had on set off my tan, my curves, and really drew attention to my pretty new peep toe sandals. My toenails matched my dress, and my makeup was smokey and deep. I knew my eyes seemed to be glowing from my face and no doubt, before long, Emerson would make a comment to Gramma or one of the aunts about how much makeup I was wearing.

  My smile, however, didn’t go all the way to my heart. I was dying inside with the stress of what was happening. How could I be a murder suspect?

  I glanced across the gathering and noticed too many gazes turned my way. My cousin, Emerson, was hissing something, probably nasty, to her poor boyfriend Darkin. The guy had a look on his face that was impossible to read. Was he agreeing? Could he even hear her in this ruckus? He was tall, dark, handsome and sort of other-worldly pretty but in a way that screamed milksop.