KAREN.
"How far to Sugar Maple?" I asked the gas station attendant as I pushed two twenties across the counter toward him. I had been on the road since noon and it was now after dark. Either I was getting close or the next stop would be Canada.
He ignored the money and gestured toward the tote slung across my body. "Your bag"s been ringing since you pulled in. Aren"t you going to answer it? Somebody wants to talk to you wicked bad."
Not until I heard the right ringtone. "I guess my voice mail is full. So how far am I from Sugar Maple?"
"Four, five miles," he said, pushing two quarters" change in my direction, "but I wouldn"t go there tonight if I was you. Not unless you got a place to stay."
"They have an inn," I said. "I saw it in the guidebook." It was mud season. n.o.body sane went to Vermont during mud season. Even a five-star inn would have vacancies.
"They don"t rent rooms."
"An inn that doesn"t rent rooms?" And they said I was crazy . . .
"Eat at the restaurant, then go back where you came from. That"s how they like it up that way." His brow furrowed like a worried shar-pei as he pointedly raised his voice over the bleat of my cell. "I"d grab myself a room at Motel 6. Save Sugar Maple for the morning."
Good, solid, well-meaning advice that I was going to ignore. I didn"t care where I slept. I"d sleep in the car if I had to. I didn"t care what I ate or if I ate at all. The only thing I cared about was finding my ex-husband before it was too late.
The phone went silent for a moment, then sprang to life again. But this time- I ripped the phone from my bag and flipped it open. "Steffie! Talk to me, honey! It"s Mommy. Please talk to me-"
The line went dead.
"Steffie!"
I didn"t mean to scream but her name tore from my throat, from my gut. The gas station attendant, who clearly thought I was a runaway mental patient, took three steps back.
"It"s the mountains," he said slowly. "Busts up the signal. She"ll call back."
"It"s not the mountains," I said, struggling to rein in my emotions. "It"s me. It"s . . . everything."
I mean, what would he think if I told him that call was from my dead daughter? He would probably lock himself in his storeroom and call the cops.
That was Steffie on the line. I had no doubt. Two calls. One last week, one a few moments ago. Both signaled by the same ringtone: Steffie"s lullaby. Our secret song, we called it. A tune we had made up together, a silly mix of nonsense words and sounds that made us both giggle. Not even her father had ever known about it. But somehow, some way, it had ended up as a ringtone.
Mommy . . . Mommy . . . can you hear me . . . ?
"Lady?" The poor cashier was looking at me like he was afraid I"d pull a gun on him. "Is something wrong? No offense but you look like you haven"t eaten in a while. We"ve got some sandwiches in the vending machine."
I stared at him blankly, then started to laugh, a crazy out-of-control laugh that made my whole body shake. Had I eaten today? I hadn"t a clue. I wasn"t sure I ate yesterday or the day before. Or slept for that matter. He was looking at me with such compa.s.sion mixed with curiosity that I almost spilled my whole story onto the ground between us, but something-my last shred of sanity maybe-held me back.
Last week I"d told my friend Angela from work everything and the first thing she did was stage an intervention designed to force me into some kind of mental hospital where they would help me deal with my grief.
Grief. What a small nothing of a word to describe the ripping, clawing pain I had felt every day since Steffie died.
They said I was grieving too hard, mourning too long, that it was time to suck it up and get on with it. They were right. I knew they were right. I"d been trying to pull myself back from the edge and had actually managed to make some progress when I started having the dreams and then the visions and now the phone calls from Steffie, and I was in deeper than ever.
The attendant tossed a Twix in my direction. "On the house."
I smiled at him and pocketed the candy bar. Sometimes it was easier to say thanks and get on with it. At least one of us would be happy.
"Just keep driving along the state road," he said as I climbed back behind the wheel. "Check in at the motel. Sugar Maple"ll be there in the morning."
I drove right on past.
WELCOME TO SUGAR MAPLE-EST. 1692.
POPULATION 417.
We had more than four hundred seventeen people in our high school graduating cla.s.s. The thought of my ex-husband in a place like this was baffling, but Fran said he"d been here almost six months now, working as interim chief of police. Hard to imagine a big-city cop setting up shop in a town with only one traffic light, but then neither of us had ended up where we"d expected.
We had expected to grow old together. At least in the beginning, before life got the better of us, we"d believed that we were destined to spend our golden years scoping out the early bird specials between visits from our kids and grandkids.
I didn"t have an address but it shouldn"t be too hard to find the police station in a town this size. Except that I couldn"t find it. I found everything else: a yarn shop, a bagel place, a bank, a library, but no police station. It wasn"t even eight o"clock and the town was shut down tight.
I wasn"t sure why but the place gave me the creeps. There was something too Stepford about it for my taste. I would have paid somebody to litter. It was hard to imagine real, live, messy human beings living there. The town was too pretty, too perfect, too empty. I know it sounds crazy, but I was starting to understand how a deer felt during hunting season. Just because you couldn"t see the hunters didn"t mean they weren"t there.
The gas station attendant had been right. They didn"t exactly roll out the welcome mat for visitors after dark. Suddenly I wanted to get back on the road as fast as possible, find that Motel 6, and wait for the goose b.u.mps on the back of my neck to go down.
I made a U-turn on Osborne and aimed the car toward the township line and had managed to get about a half mile away when my cell phone on the seat next to me lit up and Steffie"s song filled the cabin of the rental car.
I turned and grabbed for the phone at the same instant a deer leaped directly into the path of my rental car.
All I could do was. .h.i.t the brakes and pray.
3.
CHLOE.
We managed to work our way to the end of the agenda without incident. So far the Weavers had kept almost unnaturally silent, not even offering a comment about the flower beds the Garden Club was offering to plant and maintain in front of local establishments, including the Inn. The back of my neck felt like it was being pinched by a giant monkey fist that probably wouldn"t let go until I tackled one last issue.
"Looks like that"s everything," Verna Griggs said, snapping shut her steno pad. Verna was serving as township recording secretary. "If we adjourn now, I still have time to catch CSI: Miami CSI: Miami."
If only there was some kind of magick to make my stomach stop doing backflips.
"There"s one more piece of business," I said, ignoring the loud moans of disappointment from the crowd. "As you are all aware, Luke MacKenzie has been serving in a temporary capacity since December and-" I tilted my head in the direction of a rhythmic tapping coming from the center of the room. "Does anyone else hear that noise?"
"If you mean the appalling sound of nepotism, I certainly do." My former friend Renate Weaver was perched on the old-fashioned pencil sharpener attached to the desk beneath the window.
"Stop it, Mother," her eldest daughter, Bettina, snapped. "This isn"t nepotism. Chloe and Luke aren"t related."
"It"s favoritism," Colm, pater familias of the Weaver clan, declared. "After what she did to Isadora, she shouldn"t even be our mayor."
I knew it was ridiculous to be intimidated by a man the size of your average blue jay, but I was just the same.
When I banished Isadora from this realm, I had also unwittingly banished the Weavers from my life, a turn of events I regretted deeply.
"As I was saying, we have less than six weeks to name a permanent chief of police or Montpelier will do it for us." I grinned at the chorus of boos the mention of the state capitol always elicited. New Englanders were nothing if not independent. "I propose that Luke-" I stopped and glanced down at the floor. "Is it just me or did the earth move?"
"I"d say it"s been moving every night since your sweetie came to town," Midge observed to more laughter.
I waited for everyone to settle down. "I"m proposing we offer Luke a three-year contract at a salary to be determined after review by our town treasurer." I turned to Luke, who was hiding behind what I called his cop face. He was better than a shapeshifter when it came to keeping his true self under wraps.
In my eagerness to keep from being blindsided by the Weavers, I had managed to totally blindside the man I loved with a public declaration of intent. It was too late now. All I could do was push forward and apologize later. "We"ll present you with a formal offer tomorrow, as soon as I can get to my computer and print one out."
He nodded and I liked to think he was about to say something like "Where do I sign?" but he didn"t. He didn"t say anything, and his silence could be heard loud and clear in the last row.
Renate"s smile was wide and triumphant. Colm"s held more than a touch of malice. Janice and Lynette looked as uncomfortable as I felt. Lilith, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with compa.s.sion, pinched her husband Archie"s leg. I didn"t ask why. Archie was capable of saying just about anything.
I caught a ripple of laughter from the northeast corner of the room. Luke stood up and I swear to you my heart almost stopped beating. I didn"t need powers to know it wasn"t good.
"I have to leave."
"You can"t!" Could this get any more humiliating?
He flashed his pager. "Minor one-car accident a half mile outside of town. Gotta go."
And he did.
About as quickly as any human could, short of an Olympic sprinter.
"I think we have our answer, people." Renate could barely keep the triumph from her voice. "That"s hardly a man looking to stay in Sugar Maple."
"There was an accident," I snapped. "He had to leave."
"An accident?" Midge Stallworth piped up. "In town? That can"t be! Did the charm stop working?"
"This is unacceptable. Four months and she still hasn"t figured out how to keep things running smoothly," Colm said with a sad shake of his head. "I ask you, everyone, is this the way you want to continue?"
"And she"s not even pregnant!" Mona was a mermaid currently land-enabled while she studied the healing arts with Lilith and Janice. "Isn"t that what this is about? If Chloe doesn"t get pregnant, you"ll all lose."
"Precisely," Colm said with a satisfied nod in Mona"s direction. "Without a descendant to fulfill Aerynn"s blessing, we are doomed to the same fate as befell our Salem ancestors."
"He"s right." Rose from a.s.sisted Living nodded her tightly coiffed head. "We"ll be hounded like dogs, then driven from our homes! I"d rather go beyond the mist."
"You"re all out of order," I said. "If you want to be recognized, please follow the accepted procedures."
"You might want to try that yourself," Colm shot back. "Next time you should ask your boyfriend how he feels before you offer him a job. He took off to keep from embarra.s.sing you."
"Luke received an emergency call, Colm. He had to leave and you know it."
"Right," he said. "And you"re not your mother"s daughter."
"Take that back!"
"I offended you?" He feigned innocence. "Guinevere was a lovely woman. I meant it as a compliment. You"re very much like your mother."
"Because I fell in love with a human?"
The mask of innocence dropped away, and I saw nothing but hatred in his eyes.
"Because we can"t count on you any more than you could count on her."
I started to shake with rage. Even my teeth rattled. The power of my anger scared me until I realized that I was being shaken from the outside, not the inside, and so was everyone else in the room.
"Earthquake!" Manny bellowed. He aimed his motorized Scooter toward the exit, but his wheel locks were on and he started moving in lazy circles.
"d.a.m.n heating system!" Paul Griggs said, glancing around. "We"re going to have to spring for a new boiler before the old one blows."
With all the magick afoot in Sugar Maple, you would think we could just conjure up a new heating system, but not even sorcery could replace a good plumber.
Lynette stood up and pointed toward one of the pillars on the bride"s side of the old church. "I just saw a flash of light over there!"
"I didn"t see anything," Janice said, "but it"s definitely getting hot in here."
"I smell smoke," Archie said.
But it wasn"t smoke he smelled. It was the smell the air got just before an electrical storm broke loose. Sharp, metallic, and frighteningly familiar.
Above my head the Souderbush family collectively dematerialized. You knew something bad was coming when even the dead were afraid to stick around.
The center of the room pulsated in time to a rhythmic pounding that sounded like a thousand battering rams slamming against a locked door. I felt the sound in my very bones and it was gaining power with every second.
"There"s nothing to worry about," I called out. "We"re safe. The spell"s still in place. This is just a little blip. Nothing can harm us!"
I"d no sooner uttered the words than the room split in two from ceiling to floor with a sound like giant metal gears grinding together. If h.e.l.l had a sound, this would be it.
If h.e.l.l had an image, it would be the streaks of purple glitter I saw near the corner of the room.
Glitter was the Fae equivalent of fingerprints, the one thing even the cleverest among them couldn"t disguise. Only one member of the Fae carried deep purple glitter within her, and that was Isadora.
Terror sprang to life inside my chest and clawed like a wild thing trying to get out. Isadora couldn"t possibly be here. With help from the Book of Spells, I had banished her forever and then rebanished her twice more just to be on the safe side.
The pounding, thundering noise grew louder, faster, more insistent. The pressure in the room intensified until I thought my head would burst open like an overripe cantaloupe. Something terrible was about to happen, something- "Everybody down!" I cried out, and the next thing I knew, I was flat on my back as the world exploded around me like a thousand Fourth of Julys.
A sickeningly sweet mist quickly filled the room, swirling up to the eaves, then snaking back down around our ankles. I knew that smell. I remembered that oily film on my skin just before- Isadora . . . oh G.o.d, not Isadora . . .
I had banished the Fae leader three times. I had called upon every ancient charm and spell I could find in the Book and doubled their strength. She shouldn"t have been able to get anywhere near Sugar Maple, much less the human realm.
The villagers were in a state of total meltdown, which would quickly turn into a full-scale riot if anyone else noticed Isadora"s calling card. Now that I knew the Weavers weren"t the only family in Sugar Maple who harbored resentment toward me for banishing Isadora, I wasn"t ready to find out just how deep the opposition ran.