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

  I didn’t need an explanation. But you couldn’t be type-A workaholic with HS. You had to balance what your body told you. You couldn’t avoid the torpor. It would take you down no matter how many energy drinks, espresso cocktails you downed. You had appointments? Too bad. You had a surgery or a conference or a clinic? Too dang bad.

  I stood and started pacing and Becca watched me. She finally said, “You have it too.”

  I nodded and then said, “I’m at the end of a cycle. The torpor is coming.”

  Becca didn’t give me the sympathetic expression that so many of those who didn’t have HS would have. I got it. I wouldn’t have been all that sympathetic for her either. There was only anywhere near when those pictures had started.

  “Did you get the call about a year ago about being part of a study? That university study?”

  Becca snorted. “It wasn’t a university study. Not really. It was some kid working on his doctorate. He wanted so much information. Diets, a daily journal, weekly and monthly check-ins. Did you talk to him?”

  I shook my head.

  “I did. He made these wild, crazy promises, but I talked to Kendra too. We talk here and there still. And she had been contacted too and had done some research into who he was, his funding, all of it. This kid…it wasn’t a big university thing. It was just him. He wanted our lives for his paper. But, there was no reason to believe that he’d be able to lead for any answers.”

  I sat down and got on my soapbox, leaning forward intently. I’d long ago made a reluctant peace with my HS.

  “There isn’t any answer for us. There isn’t some cure or pill or potion that is going to fix things. The only thing that can change is your attitude.”

  Becca scowled at me. You could see she’d been told it before. “You sound like the chick who runs our support group. She didn’t even have HS. She had cancer. Accept, roll with it, rise up. This isn’t the life I wanted.”

  “I fought for a long time. I listened to those jerks who tell you it would get better if you just gave up white sugar or gluten or tried essential oils. I tried mediations and yoga. I tried studies and specialized diets. I ate entirely organic from scratch. I’ve done it all. I took normal pills like Ambien to sleep when the energy was hitting me. I tried weird meds that the doctor thought, well maybe…”

  Becca leaned back, brows up, almost surrendering.

  I cleared my throat before I said, “Girl, I know. I know all about this crap. I know you do too, but my first diagnosed bout was my junior year of high school. But looking back, I had issues all the way through my earliest memories. My Gramma can remember when I was three and couldn’t settle down and then three days later, I was in the hospital because I wouldn’t wake up.”

  Becca winced.

  “I had no idea why I was the way I was, and I had no idea of what I needed to do to help myself. I’m not telling you that all is wonderful and great because it’s not. But I can tell you this, I get projects lined up for when the energy hits me and I work like a fiend. When the energy is gone, I marathon crime shows on my couch and sleep for days. I keep a stocked pantry and enjoy the heck out of eating like an animal. This illness sucks. But if you listen to your body, you can lessen the pain.”

  Becca’s eyes were shiny as she asked, “What do you do? I work temp jobs and get money from my parents if the torpor lasts too long.”

  “I do everything under the sun. I had a paper route until this morning. You have to let go of the life we were taught to want. The 9-to-5 job and mortgage. If you let go of the typical, you can still create a good life out of the other options.”

  Jinx had choked when she heard that I gave up my paper route.

  “I write cheesy romances novels and self-publish. I flip houses and restore furniture and create tinctures and potions. I sell my stuff online and through Jen’s mom’s craft booths and shop. Mostly though, I just do what I can. I bank extra money for when the torpor hits and I use the energy to get stuff done for the in-betweens.”

  “You make it sound easy,” Becca muttered.

  “It is what it is. You can keep wishing it hadn’t happened to you, but HS isn’t going anywhere. Do you know that people who have HS in balance tend to live past 100?”

  She shook her head.

  “Do you know that, excepting torpor days, we sleep 4-5 hours versus 8-10 hours?”

  “Well yeah,” she said.

  “Take the need for less sleep, the faster metabolism, the bursts of energy as the superpowers they are. Because, as you know, nothing else works. Acceptance and a list of what you can do when you stop trying to lay in bed like everyone else.”

  Chapter 10

  On the way back to Longfolk Jinx asked, “Did you really give up your paper route?”

  I nodded and said, “My manager told me the next time the torpor hit I needed to find someone to cover me or get fired. I told him it was coming, and I wasn’t going to find anyone else. I’d have felt bad about notice but—he knew I had HS when he hired me.”

  “Are you going to be ok without that money?”

  “I only did it for the exercise and a reason to be up. I usually can’t sleep at that time of night anyway.”

  My phone rang and I answered it through my car, “Hello?”

  An alto voice asked, “Is this Ava Crowe?”

  “That’s me,” I said.

  “This is Kendra Jenkins. I received a call from Becca regarding your visit.”

  “Well hello there,” I told her. I glanced at Jinx and lifted my brows. “I suppose that Becca called you and told you about the picture of you?”

  “Indeed. I am wondering if you’d like to meet,” Kendra said. “We could meet at Elizabeth on 37th? I have reservations.”

  I glanced at Jinx who nodded, and then I u-turned and went downtown. We agreed to meet there soon, and I guessed that Kendra had selected the Elizabeth to intimidate us.

  “You read too many books. She probably just likes their fish.”

  “It’s awfully pricey for meeting a random person.”

  “It’s quiet and you’re expected to linger. We aren’t going to be talking murders and stalking over the sounds of screaming kids.”

  I didn’t agree, but I wasn’t going to argue further. I liked good food, I wasn’t easily intimidated, it didn’t matter. Given I was bulking, I thought I might be able to put away most of the seven courses they served. I might even want to stop by Honey Cakes and grab some of those cupcakes. In fact…I messaged Honey an order. I bet she’d drop them by since we were on her way home.

  “Don’t text and drive, fool,” Jinx ordered and took my phone from me, finishing my order and altering it to include her and—I noted—Levi’s favorite cupcake. Then she messaged Levi from her own phone.

  “Are you inviting him to my house?”

  “You aren’t staying alone until this is sorted out. I’d rather be paranoid than wrong.”

  I wasn’t sure that was all it was. Jinx had moments of quiet over the day that didn’t match her usual personality and I knew her well enough to know she was thinking about Levi. The thing was—we were young. If she really had feelings for him and didn’t act on them, I was certain she’d never stop wondering. In my opinion, she needed to try. Besides, I adored them both. I loved the idea of them together.

  We weren’t really dressed for the Elizabeth, but I was willing to pretend otherwise. Kendra was as lovely in person as she was in the picture. I scowled at her and then said, “It seems to me the camera guy should have creeped on you more than he did on me. You are way more attractive than me.”

  “Who can say what triggers someone when it comes to obsessions? I understand there were quite a few more pictures of you than of Becca or myself?”

  I nodded and saw that we’d already been served water, a cheese and olive plate. I quickly ordered a glass of wine while Jinx decided to be extra sensible and stick with water.

  “There were hundreds of pictures of me,” I said. “Too many of them were like this one.”

  I showed Kendra the picture of me that I hated, shivered again at the sight of it

  “How did you find out about this investigator?”

  I cleared my throat and said, “He’s dead.”

  Her brows rose and she carefully asked, “Excuse me?”

  “He was murdered while he was following me onto one of the uninhabited barrier islands. To the outside, it looks like I was the only one on the island with him. The police are…”

  “They suspect you. You were alone on the island with him. He had all those pictures. Why haven’t you been arrested?”

  I sighed and then admitted, “Everyone in Longfolk assumes I wouldn’t be capable of it. The HS combined with what I do makes me too much of a screw-up to win against someone who successfully stalked me for months while I had no idea. I am trying to figure out who would kill him. Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with me…”

  Kendra shot me a mocking glance, and I could see that the wit that had made her a doctor had already jumped ahead. Yeah, he might have been killed by anyone. But he was killed while he was stalking me on a place that no one could have guessed he’d be.

  “It seems to me,” Kendra said carefully, “that one other person knew he’d been taking pictures of you and following you around.”

  I blinked and then said, “Tell me more.”

  “The vast majority of sufferers of HS fall in the category of mild-to-moderate. You, me, Becca, we fall in the category of extreme. Based off of what Becca told me of your life anyway. Would you say that was true?”

  I nodded and then gestured for her to continue.

  “If you were doing a study, those of us who’d learned to survive with the HS and have anything remotely close to a life would be of vast important. The
ways we manage—those are the ways those who suffer less can manage—only they’ll have far more normal lives than we do. Yet in all of the Savannah area, there can’t be that many people with extreme versions of HS.”

  We paused and ordered food. While we were putting in our orders, three different kinds of fish. I ordered two different of the appetizers and noticed Kendra watching me.

  “You eat heavily when you feel it?”

  I nodded and said, “If you don’t listen to your body and move when you have to, slow down when you have to, eat a ton when you feel it, you’ll be hummingbird syndrome’s punching bag.”

  Kendra crossed her legs and said, “When you aren’t cycling towards the end of a bout like you are now, do you exercise?”

  “Religiously.”

  “Do you sleep at least four hours a day?”

  “And often a nap,” I said.

  “And you run a bunch of side jobs that keep you in business?”

  I nodded.

  “I hated having this at first. But once I gave up my hospital job and took on a researcher job, well…the capacity to work 20 hours a day with a little nap and a bunch of food…it’s useful.”

  Jinx snorted.“Perhaps extreme cases of HS are victims who are also workaholics.” Jinx’s gaze flicked between me and Kendra and then she said, “You need to call Ulrich about all of this.”

  I suspected that calling the hot bear shifter cop and explaining that I’d been doing my own investigation would go over swimmingly. Then again, he’d signed a lease, I didn’t kill the stalker. I’d like to have stabbed him a little though. Maybe just in his thigh rather than his back. Something super painful that would hurt whenever it rained but without having killed him.

  I refused to call Ulrich until after I’d finished my dinner. I wanted to enjoy my red snapper. About halfway through my meal, I ordered a side of mashed potatoes as well. The yawning pit inside of my stomach was growing. I doubted I had even 48 hours before the torpor hit me.

  Kendra said, “I never allow myself to exceed recommended calories.”

  “Ok,” I said.

  “How long does the torpor last for you?” Jinx asked.

  “About a 5 days,” Kendra said.

  “And you’re achy the whole time?”

  Kendra nodded and then said, “That’s how HS works.”

  “Not for Ava,” Jinx said. “Ava does what her body is telling her. She pays close attention, and her torpor usually lasts anywhere from a day and a half to two days and isn’t nearly as painful as most I hear of.”

  “Maybe she isn’t an extreme case then,” Kendra suggested. “The problem with a spectrum is that we’re more likely to see ourselves as worse than we are. It makes us more sympathetic to our family.”

  The flash of anger I felt left my hands shaking. I stood, took my phone, and walked out of the restaurant so I wasn’t tempted to stab Kendra in the leg for making assumptions about me. I was never super tolerant of others assumptions about me, but it was an open wound when it came to HS.

  I flicked through my emails on my phone, pacing the parking lot until I found the email that invited me to the study. I had gotten voicemails—several of them actually—but I’d deleted those long ago.

  I called Ulrich and he answered with, “This is Rick.”

  I blinked and then said, “Rick? Really? Did you forget you go by Rick, is Ulrich something you’re transitioning to in Longfolk? Or did you decide to shake Ulrich because it’s too different.”

  “Ava?”

  “Yes obviously,” I told him.

  “I go by both Rick and Ulrich. Is there a reason you’re calling? I’m in the middle of moving here.”

  I smirked, imagining his reaction. “Look, I’m sure you’ll be thrilled to know that when I was stress cleaning my house, I found some of the pictures that you brought over and they fell under my couch.”

  “Ok. I can come by and get them. I stopped by to let you know I was moving in, but…”

  “I’m in Savannah. I figured out who the two girls were in the pictures. The one with the sunglasses and the black one with the cool hair.”

  Rick cleared his throat and then carefully asked, “So you decided to hunt them down? Even though they would also have a motive to kill that guy and may have framed you?”

  I heard the censure in his voice and ignored it to say, “I figured out what connected us as well and I have a guess as to why.”

  Rick’s pause was long enough that I guessed he was peeved with me but trying to hide it to find out why.

  A hand came in front of my face and I gasped and turned. But the hand pressed down with a rag and suddenly everything had gone dark.

  Chapter 11

  When I woke, I gasped and tried to sit up, banging my head against the something hard and metal. I rubbed my head and tried to see. It was so dark but…holy magic! Was I in the trunk of a car? My goodness, I was! Was this for real? My heart was racing, and I felt a rush of panic. My brain was jumping around like crazy.

  “Ok, Ava,” I told myself. “Calm down. All is not lost.”

  The thing about having HS was that before you figured out a pattern of things to do during the middle of the night when everyone else was sleeping you spent a lot of time on the internet or reading random books. And you learned things like every car manufactured after 2002 has trunk releases. I dug around inside the car until I found it and slowly lifted the back of the car. It was parked outside of a house. My house! It was lit up from the inside, and I could see the shadow of someone moving around in it.

  Since this was my cabin house. I knew where I was. We were pretty remote, but I had been here lots of times. My instinct was to run to the house, but there had to be a reason we were there. I ran instead for the woods.

  These woods were my woods and when I’d redone the cabin, I’d laid the wards here. Wards that protected the owner and the renter. Whoever had taken me, had to have picked this place on purpose, so maybe they knew that? There was a reason the cabin was the destination. I made my way through the woods, so grateful I knew them. Much of the woods near here were owned by me. They were also pretty dang remote, so there wasn’t anywhere I could go for help.

  “Keep calm, Ava, and use your mind,” I told myself. The panic was burning through my energy, and I was concerned the torpor would hit me before I could find a refuge.

  Oh! The fairy field. Of course. I took stock of my location and then angled towards it.

  “Ava!”

  I did not know that voice, and I did not like hearing how it seemed to have said my name too many times. I ran faster, darting ahead. I freaking loved fairies. The nasty little, foul-mouthed, intrinsically magical addicts of candy and chips. When I’d found my way here the first time, I’d made friends with a few of them. I hadn’t even caught them for their dust.

  I moved as silently as I could, so when I heard crashing behind me and my name being bellowed again, I had a moment to drop to the ground and hide between two trees. Thank goodness it was dark. But why did it have to be fall here? Why did the trees have to lose their leaves? It was a lot harder to hide in these woods without the extra greenery. I crawled slowly forward, holding my breath.

  “Ava! Ava come back! Don’t be afraid.”

  Internally, I wanted to shriek, ‘Don’t be afraid? Are you kidding me? You took me and locked me in a trunk.’ Instead, I pressed myself against the trunk of a tree, nails digging into the bark, and I threw my focus farther to the other end of the woods. My magic tended towards potions and spells, but my focus was intent at the moment and I was able to get a branch to snap.

  The huff of breath stopped and he went bounding the other way. I bit my lip holding back a gasp of relief and then I crawled deeper into the woods towards the fairy field.

  “Ava,” I whispered as I crawled, “Jinx is already looking for you. She’ll gather the Crowes, they’ll do blood magic, you just have to hide and wait.”

  I crawled a good distance before I risked getting to my feet, and then I was running again. I hit the border of the fairy field and gasped, dropping to my hands and knees. Once there, I made my way to the burrow, bit my lip bloody, and left a drop of blood at the entrance. It took about five minutes for a fairy to peek out.