Chapter 1
Coral
No words could express the depth of the annoyance I felt as I stared at the pile of junk I had to haul back. Dear, sweet, and extremely obnoxious Angelique always had to find a way to be a thorn in my side.
When I left the apartment I had been sharing with her and Sophia three months ago, I thought I was done with her nonsense. Granted, I bailed out before the end of our lease, but I paid my remaining share up front so they couldn’t claim I had screwed them over somehow. It had been an amicable split. As I left so early on, my two ex-roommates agreed that they would tackle the final cleaning before their departure.
Sophia did her part, as expected. But miss diva Angelique had to leave some other crap behind. And the landlady wasn’t having it. With Sophia being out of town for a wedding, and Angie conveniently being stuck in some other engagement also out of town, it all fell back on me. It didn’t matter that she only had four bags and a couple additional knickknacks. None of this should be my problem anymore. But as I didn’t want to be stuck paying cleaning penalties since my name remained on the lease, here I was sacrificing my time andplaying movers.
Mrs. Hopkins cleared her throat with a less-than-subtle impatience. I much preferred dealing with the superintendent than with this dragon of a landlady. To be fair, she wasn’t rude or mean per se. She just made you immediately stand up straight as if under military review.
Tall and skinny, the older woman in her late fifties, stared at me with her obsidian eyes assessing me over narrow glasses. Her long black hair was held tightly into the most perfect bun. You’d think every single strand was so scared to misbehave she didn’t even need gel to keep them in place. She always wore black suits with the appropriate knee length skirt, a pristine white shirt beneath the vest, and black high heels so polished you could see your reflection in them. You’d never catch her without makeup on, flawlessly applied, which enhanced her features in a natural and elegant fashion.
Every time I stood in her presence, I felt like an unruly child about to be scolded by the head mistress of a strict reform school for girls.
Not wanting to try her patience longer than necessary, I reached for the big bags she’d thankfully prepacked for me. My body leaning in a way to hide what I was doing, I cast a discreet strength spell on myself. I should have done it before I entered the apartment but never expected there would be this much stuff left. Although most people believed magic to be an old wives’ tale, you didn’t go around advertising that we were active in the craft. And even less so when you were just a dabbler like me.
First, I picked up the fancy ermine cloak sitting on top of the bags and stuffed it under my left arm. Then, I grabbed two bags in each hand. The wretched things were overflowing. How she managed to zip them shut could qualify as witchcraft in and of itself.
“Off I go and sorry for the inconvenience,” I told Mrs. Hopkins with a stiff smile.
She gave me the strangest look, my senses going into highalert when the most subtle smirk quirked the corner of her thin lips.
“Not so fast, Coral. You forgot one thing,” she said in that overly polite tone receptionists sometimes gave you.
I blinked, confused as to what she was referring to, then glanced at the floor around the narrow entrance for any signs of what I might have missed. She snapped her fingers, making me jerk my head up.
“Not down there but up here,” she said, pointing an elegantly manicured index finger at the console propped against the left wall.
She reached for an egg-shaped black stone sitting atop it.
“What is that?” I asked, confused.
“Another of Angelique’s belongings,” Mrs. Hopkins said with a blase tone and a dismissive shrug.
“That’s trash!” I exclaimed disbelievingly. “Who cares about a rock? And anyway, you can see that I have no room to carry this.”
“Tut, tut,” she replied with a mulish expression. “Everything is to be removed as I am not getting sued for missing property.”
“But—”
Before I could finish whatever I intended to say, Mrs. Hopkins stuffed the rock under my armpit, right above the ermine.
“See? All set!” she said in an overly smug tone that made me want to kick her. “Now off you go!”
Annoyed to no end, I muttered something under my breath, gave her a stiff nod, and turned around to leave.
“Just so you know, Miss Reef, the most insignificant objects are often the most valuable,” she said in a mysterious tone.
Ya, that was me, Coral Reef. My parents were the hipster type who thought of themselves as witty and the most hilarious of comedians. Instead, they just stockpiled the Darwin Awards of Cringe. Sadly for me, I’d been born during the craze whereparents were trying too hard to be overly clever with baby names. I actually liked my first name. It was the combo with my surname I could have lived without. But hey, it beat funky given names like Tu Morrow, Angel Face, and Skibidi like some unfortunate souls I met got ‘blessed’ with. Still, I loved my parents with all their quirks.
“What?” I asked, confused as I glanced over my shoulder at her.
She gave me that mysterious look again. But this time, the intensity of her dark gaze unsettled me.
“You’ll see. But you should hurry before your cab leaves,” she said with an almost taunting smile.
“Oh fuck!” I muttered and immediately flinched. “Sorry!”
