“You assume correctly,” Persi said, smiling sweetly and pointing to the corner, where an old coat closet contained all the cleaning supplies. “But put up the sign first.”
I followed the two shame-faced girls to the door, handed them their other purchases, and shut the door behind them. As I turned the lock and hung the sign that said, “Back In A SPELL!” I noticed the same woman I’d seen over at the school. She had a map in her hands and seemed to be coughing, her nose scrunched up as the two girls walked past her. They exchanged a few words, the woman threw a wary look at the shop, and then turned and continued back along Main Street. She still had a disgruntled look on her face, like when I’d seen her over at the school, and I found myself thankful she didn’t seem interested in entering the shop. She had the determined air of someone who would have ignored a ‘closed’ sign and just walked right in.
Cleaning up the patchouli oil took so long, that my shift was nearly over when I had finished. I flipped the sign back over, ushered in an impatient stream of customers, and then called up the stairs to Persi, who had vanished up them at the first opportunity to work on some custom spellwork orders for one of the local covens. She descended the stairs and handed me a small, blue velvet bag that clinked a little as she dropped it into my hands.
“Be a lamb and drop this for Leila at the Historical Society?”
“Leila?” I asked, frowning.
“Leila Nightjar. She works there, helping Penelope lead the tours. Just ask for her, if you’re not sure.”
“Okay,” I said. “See you for dinner?”
“No, I’ve got more work to do here after we close, and then I have somewhere I have to be. I’ll be late,” Persi insisted. “Tell Rhi for me, will you?”
I almost asked her where she was going, but decided against it. There were too many people in the store now, and Persi’s nighttime wanderings were hardly the type of thing we wanted the tourists to know about.
Especially if, as I suspected, she was visiting a certain someone…
I walked my bike slowly between the knots of people who swarmed the streets—it was entirely too crowded now to attempt pedaling. What had started a couple of weeks earlier as a fun and colorful influx of costumes and tourist money had soon devolved into chaos, constant noise, and pushy crowds. I’d also realized it was the perfect cover for someone like Veronica if she wanted to sneak her way back into town undetected. How could I be sure that the faces hidden behind the masks and the face paint weren’t those of Veronica Meyers, or other members of the Kildare coven? But I soon found that it was too mentally taxing to keep up that level of paranoia, and now that we were halfway through the month, I was no longer looking over my shoulder constantly.
There were still two weeks until Halloween, and I found myself longing for the peace and quiet the first of November would bring. Tourist season would officially be over, and Sedgwick Cove would settle down to hibernate through a chilly New England winter. Then I’d finally be able to help with the secret work upstairs, and learn the craft that Shadowkeep was really known for—the kind of work that currently nestled in the bag Persi had given me.
As I approached the Historical Society, a walking tour was just gathering on the corner. A motley collection of superheroes, 80’s slasher villains, and a trio of glitter-winged fairies were standing grouped around a tour guide decked out in a Victorian-era black corseted dress and a witchhat. As luck would have it, she was also wearing a gold nametag pinned to the front of her dress: Leila Nightjar.
I leaned my bike against the light post on the corner, and eased my way through the little crowd.
“Right, okay, everyone have your QR codes pulled up on your phones so I can scan your tickets please!” Leila called into her crowd, and waited while everyone from Michael Meyers to Captain America fumbled for their phones.
“Excuse me? Leila?”
“Sorry, but this tour’s full, you’ll have to—oh! It’s Wren, isn’t it?” Leila asked, her somewhat bored expression brightening as she recognized me. She was an elven slip of a woman who was probably in her early thirties, but looked younger. She had a pixie cut dyed a soft shade of rosy pink, and a sprinkling of freckles across her slightly turned-up nose. Her smile, as it spread across her face, was wide and brightly white.
“Yeah, that’s right. Um, my aunt asked me to deliver this to you,” I said, holding out the blue velvet pouch.
“Oh!” Leila’s bright smile crumpled into something like disappointment as she took the pouch carefully into her hands. “I told her I would be by to pick it up. You didn’t have to go out of your way.”
“It was no trouble. I had to ride right by,” I assured her.
“But I…” she bit her lip, and for one alarming moment she looked like she might cry. “Did she, um… say anything else? A message to pass on?”
I frowned. “No. She just asked me to drop this off.”
“Right,” Leila said, attempting a smile, but spoiling the effect with her trembling lower lip. She slipped the pouch carefully into a little leather satchel she had attached to her waist. “Well, please tell her I’ll… I’ll be by soon. For a chat.”
“Okay, sure,” I said.
“It was nice to meet you, Wren. Hopefully I’ll see you around,” Leila said, smiling in an attempt to rally her spirits before returning to her patrons.
“You too,” I said, and I meant it. I was so used to the other locals looking wary or anxious when they met me, that it was refreshing toexperience a friendly greeting for once. Maybe Eva was right, and people were starting to get over it. Or maybe Leila was just the kind of person who didn’t let rumors cloud her perceptions of people. Still, I felt a little uneasy as I steered my bike away from her tour group. She seemed upset about something, and I thought I knew what. Persi had a bit of a reputation as a heartbreaker. I hoped Leila’s heart wasn’t her latest victim, but I really couldn’t invest too much of my own energy in the situation. Goddess knew I had my own problems.
I hopped on my bike and began to pedal as soon as I was free of the crowds, delighting in the sea breeze that whipped through my hair, filling my nostrils with the tang of the ocean, and leaving a salty residue clinging to my bare arms and legs.
Lightkeep Cottage appeared over the crest of the hill and, with it, the same dark-haired woman I’d spotted several times that day. She stood at the garden gate, and looked around at me the moment she heard the crunch of my tires over the gravel of the drive.
“Hi. Can I help you?” I asked, as I dismounted.
“I’m looking for Lightkeep Cottage. And since the road ends just up there at the cliff, I’m assuming I found it?” Her voice was heavy with exhaustion.
