Witchin' USA (A Moonstone Bay Cozy Mystery Book 1) Page 7

  “They’re not extinct but their breeding numbers are in the danger zone,” Lilac supplied. “They spend most of their time in South Africa because, for some reason, they’re more fertile there. It must be something to do with the water. I’ve never given it much thought.”

  “That makes two of us.” I faked a smile for Lilac’s benefit. I’m not sure if she believed it – her expression said the exact opposite – but I gave it my best attempt.

  “Just out of curiosity, why are you asking about shark shifters?”

  “I met Aurora this morning and she brought it up.”

  “Oh, well, that makes sense.” Lilac wrinkled her nose. “We all agreed to give you time to get used to the island before starting in on the … um … other stuff. We had a meeting and everything. Aurora refused to come. She’s not much of a joiner. I should’ve realized she would screw things up for all of us.”

  “A meeting, huh?” Just when I think things can’t get weirder … they do. “Was it a town hall meeting?”

  “Downtown Development Authority.”

  “Really?” I wasn’t expecting that. “Why?”

  “Because the lighthouse beach is a big draw and it’s important to Moonstone Bay’s bottom line,” Lilac replied, not missing a beat. “That’s the Downtown Development Authority’s biggest priority.”

  “Yeah, from everything I’ve heard about them, they’re a bunch of jerks.” I heaved out a sigh and rubbed the back of my neck as Lilac poured a glass of iced tea and shoved it in my direction. “Do you have anything stronger?”

  “Do you want something stronger?”

  “Do you have a hammer to hit myself on the head with?”

  “I do, but let’s start with a shot of bourbon first, shall we?” Lilac’s smile was wide. She grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels from the rail and added a splash of liquor to the top of my drink. “Hopefully that will settle your stomach.”

  I had my doubts that would ever happen. “Uh-huh.” I slammed the entire glass of iced tea and gestured for more. “Hit me again.”

  “It seems a little bit early,” Lilac hedged.

  “Are you my mother?”

  “No.”

  “Hit me again,” I gritted out. It took everything I had not to explode.

  Lilac looked as if she was going against her better instincts, but she did as instructed. Instead of gulping down this drink, I nursed it as I played with my napkin and stared at the smooth wooden bar.

  “I’m guessing you need to talk about a few things.” Lilac’s expression was sympathetic. “We’ll take it one question at a time. What’s your biggest concern?”

  “Oh, I have so many concerns I don’t know where to start.” That was true. I felt numb, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the alcohol … at least not yet.

  “Start with the first thing that pops into your head.”

  “Okay.” That sounded fair. “Aurora said that witches are low on the population scale here at Moonstone Bay. She also insinuated I’m a witch.”

  “Oh, I forgot you didn’t even know that much.” Lilac rubbed her jaw, her expression rueful. “You know what you need?”

  “A hammer?”

  Lilac waved off my suggestion. “You’re very dramatic. I wasn’t expecting that. May was always calm. Sure, she liked a good scene when she thought someone was bullying someone else – or whenever people bought a dog instead of rescuing one because she thought that was such a waste – but, in general, she was pretty unflappable. You’re the exact opposite.”

  “I’m not dramatic,” I argued. “I’m easygoing.”

  Lilac snorted. “I love that you said that with a straight face. You know I’m an empath, right? That means I can read your emotions. It’s a little gift of mine, along with a few others that aren’t important right now. Even if I couldn’t, though, I would know that was a gross exaggeration.”

  “You’re an empath?” I wasn’t sure what that meant. “Does that mean you can read my mind?”

  “No. I’m not psychic. I can simply read your feelings. I try not to be invasive or anything, but when things are on the surface – like they are with you – it’s hard to avoid taking a peek. Sorry if that offends you.”

  Why would that offend me? I’d just found out my grandmother was a ghost, shark shifters were real, I’m apparently a witch and my new friend Lilac can read people’s emotions. It was a normal day in my world. Seriously. There’s nothing to see here. Move along.

  “Hey, are you listening to me?” Lilac snapped her fingers in my face to force me to focus on the here and now. “Do you feel as if your mind is floating? You might be having a stroke or something. I worried your brain might overload when I sensed how closed off you were to the possibility that things might be shifting for you.”

  “I’m not having a stroke.”

  “That’s good.” Lilac brightened considerably. “Listen, I know this is a lot for you to deal with. We’ll just tackle it one problem at a time. You seem obsessed with the shark shifters. You really shouldn’t worry about them. They’ve had a good run and they always find a way to survive. I doubt very much this will be any different.”

  “Oh, well, that’s a relief.”

  Lilac ignored my sarcasm. “I know, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “As for the witch stuff, have you been to the lighthouse’s third floor yet?” Lilac was sympathetic, but also serious. “A lot of the answers you’re looking for are up there. I got the feeling when we were together yesterday that you hadn’t made it up to the observatory yet so I decided to let it go until later. I figured you would come for me when you had questions. I simply didn’t think it would be this soon … or consist of these questions.”

  “The observatory?” I knit my eyebrows. “I thought the third floor was where the light comes from.”

  “Have you even been up there?” Lilac’s eyebrows shot toward her hairline. “How can you live in a place and not look at every floor before going to sleep? I’d be so worried that a vampire was living in the attic that I wouldn’t be able to relax.”

  I stilled. “Vampire?”

  “We have a few, but they’re kind of nutters,” Lilac explained, mistaking my question for curiosity rather than horrified fear. “An island isn’t a great place for a vampire. Only the crazy ones want to stay for more than a week at a time. To be fair, we get quite a few on the vacation circuit.”

  Huh. I never considered that. “Is that why your bar is always dead in the afternoon?”

  “I wasn’t lying about Mondays and Tuesdays being slow periods. Things will pick up when this afternoon’s flight arrives around three.”

  “Okay, but … vampires? Really?”

  Lilac nodded. “Yes, but they’re not so bad. Forget everything you’ve ever seen in the movies. None of it is even remotely real.”

  “So they don’t glow really pretty during daylight and moon over taciturn teenagers for no apparent reason?”

  “Oh, that’s true.”

  I stilled. “Seriously?” I felt sick to my stomach. “They glow in the sun?”

  Lilac snorted, her serious expression slipping. “You have got to learn to develop a sense of humor,” she chided. “Life is not a travesty like you seem to believe. I know most of this stuff is hard for you to absorb, but in a few weeks you’ll understand everything and it won’t seem like such a big deal.”

  I seriously doubted that. “Vampires?” My voice went squeaky.

  “Don’t worry about them.” Lilac wagged her head. “Vampires aren’t nearly as bad as you think.”

  “Well, that makes me feel so much better.” I sucked down a gulp of my drink. “So you think vampires … and shifters … and witches … and probably a hundred other things … are real.” That was a lot to wrap my head around.

  “I take it you don’t.” Lilac’s expression took on a kindly edge. “I know this is a lot for you, Hadley, but I swear it’s going to be okay. You’re only seeing the bad right now. There’re a lot of goo
d things that go along with an island like ours.”

  “Oh, really? Like what?”

  “Like every Day of the Dead celebration involves a Mexican food extravaganza.”

  “That certainly seems worth all the aggravation.”

  “Hey, don’t knock the margaritas.” Lilac wagged a chiding finger. “There’s nothing better than a pineapple margarita with a little coconut splash to liven things up.”

  That actually did sound delicious. Maybe I should switch drinks. I shook my head to slough off the distraction. “I don’t understand any of this. I mean … it doesn’t make sense. Why would my grandmother live here?”

  “I’m not sure I’m the one who should answer that.”

  “Who do you think should?”

  “Your grandmother.”

  “She’s dead.”

  “I know, but that doesn’t mean she’s gone.”

  I pressed the tip of my tongue to the back of my teeth as I debated how far I should push this conversation. Finally, I did the only thing I could do. “If I tell you something, do you promise not to tell anyone else?”

  Lilac immediately started shaking her head, taking me by surprise.

  “No?”

  “No,” Lilac confirmed. “I have a huge mouth and I gossip when I’m drunk. I’ve already proven I like my margaritas, so all I can promise is to do my best. Besides, whatever you’re about to tell me I probably already know. In fact, odds are that everyone on the island knows. They simply haven’t told you yet.”

  That sounded annoying. “I’ll bet that what I’m about to tell you will come as a surprise.” At least to a sane person.

  “Go for it.”

  “Okay.” I leaned forward, casting a cursory glance over my shoulder to make sure we were still alone, and lowered my voice to a conspiratorial tone. “Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night to find my dead grandmother was in my kitchen. She was unloading the dishwasher.”

  “Oh, that was quick.” Lilac looked excited rather than surprised.

  “Quick?”

  Lilac nodded. “Usually it takes several weeks for a newbie to see a spirit. You need to be prepared and stuff, because otherwise it could overload your circuits. You must be really strong. What kind of spells can you cast?”

  That was the last question I expected. “Spells?”

  “Yeah. Curses, spells, group chants. Are you good with your hands or better with words?”

  None of these questions made a lick of sense. “I’ve never cast a spell,” I gritted out, hoping I came off as confused instead of suspicious. “I’ve had a few spells, but they usually accompany PMS.”

  “Oh, honey, I hear that.” Lilac’s smile was warm and earnest. “Still, I don’t understand. Given your lineage, you should be all kinds of powerful.”

  I gripped my drink glass tightly as I tamped down my irritation. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “And I don’t entirely either,” Lilac admitted. “I know a little bit about May’s family – she used to love to tell a good story – but I don’t know the specifics, and I’m worried about telling you something that I remember wrong.”

  “And yet you seem to know a lot more than me,” I argued. “I know nothing.”

  “What did May say to you last night?”

  “That she made a mistake when my mother announced she was marrying my father. She said she put distance between them because she thought Mom would change her mind and do something else … or come back. I’m not quite sure what she expected to happen.”

  “Okay, I guess that makes sense,” Lilac rubbed the back of her neck as she shifted from one foot to the other. “May never talked about her daughter very often. You could tell there was a lot of guilt there. I guess that’s why we didn’t realize she was dead as long as she was. At a certain point I became aware that Emma died, but I thought it was something that happened fairly recently.”

  “She said that my mother called when she was in labor because she was afraid.” It took everything I had not to choke out the words. “She said that she believed my mother realized something bad was about to happen and that she asked May to give me a normal life.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh? That’s all you can say?”

  Lilac held up her hands and shrugged. “I’m not sure what to say. Everyone’s family is different. Perhaps your mother thought she knew something that your grandmother couldn’t grasp. Staying away from you doesn’t sound like something May would do.”

  I wasn’t in the mood to admit my father’s part in all of this, so I decided to skirt the issue. “Apparently she had some sort of fight with my father. That was all vague. She didn’t have a lot of time. She said she was still getting used to controlling her visits.”

  “That’s true.” Lilac brightened. “She should get stronger the longer she stays.”

  “I guess that’s a good thing.”

  “It’s a great thing,” Lilac enthused. “Trust me. I’ve been looking forward to May’s return. Everyone has. We didn’t think she was back yet.”

  That made absolutely no sense. “You knew she would come back?”

  “Everyone on the island comes back after … well, after.”

  “Everyone who lives on the island comes back as a ghost when they die?” I was horrified. “What about Heaven?”

  “I think the people who live on Moonstone Bay think the island is Heaven.”

  I’d heard a lot of crap in my life, but that was at the head of the bathroom line. “Is that why no one is allowed in the cemetery after dark? Is it full of ghosts?”

  “No, the cemetery is something else.” Lilac was back to being evasive. “Go back to your conversation with May. Did she tell you what kind of magic manifestations you should start expecting?”

  “I … no.” What did that mean? I was being buried under weird questions and fear. I didn’t like it. “What do you mean?”

  “Now that you’re in Moonstone Bay, now that you’re on the island and in your ancestral home, you should start manifesting magic,” Lilac explained. She was calm, as if this was the most normal conversation in the world. “The island should anchor your powers. That’s how it works.”

  “Does that mean my mother didn’t have powers when she was off the island?”

  Lilac shrugged. “I’m not familiar with how it works with witches. My powers still work on the mainland.”

  “Your powers to read people’s emotions?”

  Lilac shook her head. “All of my powers.”

  “You have more powers?” That was it. I couldn’t take it any longer. I practically screeched the question, and when I did the glass in my hand exploded, the glass flying in a hundred different directions as a brief flame erupted before fizzling out. One of the small shards zipped past my cheek, cutting me deep enough that I felt it. “What the … ?”

  Instead of being upset or yelling about the broken glass, Lilac clapped. “Now that’s what I’m talking about. Good job!”

  Yeah. Good job. I just exploded a glass with my mind and I was being congratulated. What could possibly be wrong with that?

  8

  Eight

  I walked around Moonstone Bay for most of the day. Only a quarter of that time was on the main drag. After the fourth time someone I’d never laid eyes on called out my name and wanted to stop for a chat I beat a hasty retreat to the side streets.

  I don’t know what I expected. Lilac said everyone in Moonstone Bay suffered from a shared delusion. I thought the houses would be dark and dreary, cobwebs in the corners and orange twinkle lights on every eave.

  They looked normal. In fact, they looked friendly and inviting.

  I really hated that.

  I didn’t recognize the side street I was on when my phone dinged in my pocket. I frantically dug for it, letting loose a relieved sigh when my father’s number popped up on the screen. I’d called him the moment I left Lilac’s bar – the urge to talk to someone who wasn’t crazy so overwhelming I almost curled
into a ball and cried when he didn’t answer – but I managed to hold it together long enough to leave a message.

  I picked up on the second ring. “Dad?”

  “Hello, sweetheart.” Dad’s voice was warm and booming. Even though I was in the middle of a mental breakdown it soothed me. “How are the new digs? I expected to hear from you when you landed, but all I got was a text.”

  “You’re still number one with the guilt trip, Dad,” I said dryly, slowing my pace and clutching my bottle of water with my free hand. I remembered my tour the previous day well enough to stock up on water before setting out. “I’ve been busy.”

  “I’ll bet. How’s the new house?”

  “It’s … unique.” That was putting it mildly. “It’s actually fairly nice, but it needs some work. I’m still sorting through things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  It was an innocent question on its face, but I couldn’t help being suspicious. “Well, the house is full of old clothes and shoes,” I started. “It has a big library, too. It’s on the third floor and there’s a bunch of weird stuff.”

  “Like romance novels?”

  “Ha, ha. You’re always the comedian.”

  I could practically see my father’s smile through the phone. “There’s nothing wrong with romance novels. I know you’re partial to them yourself.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you that Outlander is not a romance novel? It’s historical fiction.”

  “With a big, naked Scot,” Dad said. “I’ve seen the television show. I know what the story is about.”

  “Whatever,” I grumbled, rolling my neck until it cracked. “It’s not romance novels.” I really had no idea what was on the third floor – although I had every intention of checking once I got up the gumption to return to the lighthouse – but Dad didn’t know that. “It’s witch books.”

  “Witch books?” Dad’s voice was hard to read. “Like spell books?”

  “Yes. There’re also witch history books and … um … wand books.” Witches use wands, right? “Apparently May Potter fancied herself a witch.”

  Instead of being appropriately appalled, Dad barked out a laugh. “Was she still doing that? I knew that was one of her things, but I was under the impression she gave that up at a certain point. You would think it would lose some of its appeal once you hit sixty, wouldn’t you?”