Chapter 22 LOOK ON THE SUNFLOWER SIDE #3
I sighed. ‘I finally make a decision and it’s a bad one.’
Lara bopped me gently with the sunflower. ‘You could tell your boss that you took the job with me. And you could get paid for having fun instead.’
‘That does sound appealing,’ I admitted. ‘Although I’d have to develop an iron liver.’
‘I can help you with that,’ said Lara. ‘As part of your onboarding process.’
We turned left, then right, then left, heading deeper into the Sunflower Maze.
‘Is it just me or are these sunflowers looking kind of depressed?’ asked Lara, when she and I found ourselves stuck at a dead end. ‘They’re flaccid.’
I frowned. ‘You’re right.’
I held out a hand, running my fingers gently over the bright flowers. I could feel the magic pouring off them, but it was interrupted somehow. Like when you sit for too long in a weird position and your leg starts to tingle.
I wondered if Dan and Terry knew that something was off, or if this was new.
‘Let’s backtrack,’ I said. Lara and I changed course. After a few lefts and rights, we bumped into Finn and Jack once more. Finn seemed tipsy – and when I shot him a look, he shoved a flask into Jack’s pocket. Ah. Well, there went my designated driver.
I thought about what Josephine said about knowing what you were getting into. Finn was fun, but there was a point where fun became a problem.
‘How about this one?’ Oblivious to the tension between Finn and me, Jack held up a fine specimen of a sunflower. ‘This is bet-worthy, right?’
I smiled awkwardly. ‘Well, it’s better than the others.’
And it was. Because all around us, the sunflowers were wilting and fading, their heads nodding and their petals slumping.
Something terribly strange was happening. And it definitely had something to do with the crackling of the ring on my finger and the ribbons of magic that kept scudding across the sky and wrapping around the town. And whatever it was, it was spreading.
‘Molly?’
It was Noah’s voice.
I jumped, glancing over at Finn as I judged the space between us. It was plenty – even Mom would approve. In fact, you could argue that we were barely even here together. Our foursome had spent almost as much time apart as we had as couples.
‘You’re here,’ I told Noah awkwardly. Brilliant bit of conversation, since both of us could plainly see that he was indeed here.
‘I’m on portrait duty,’ he said, holding up a paintbrush.
So Terry had been right about both brothers being at the farm. I guess we hadn’t quite got to that part of the maze yet.
‘Right. Like Van Gogh, huh?’
‘Not of the sunflowers. Of the visitors. Of anyone who’ll sit, I guess. Proceeds go to the shelter.’ He shrugged, as though this was no big deal. But I’d known Noah for the better half of my life. I knew that if there was an animal in need, he was there to help.
‘Not me,’ said Finn. ‘I don’t trust this man to paint me. He’ll make my traps tiny and my hairline look like it’s receding.’
Noah raised an eyebrow. ‘The eye paints what the heart sees.’
My ring crackled like it had something to say. And after I’d seen Finn drinking while being the designated driver, I felt like I had something to say as well.
‘I’ll sit for one,’ I said, twisting the ring on my finger. ‘You know I’m always up for saving some cute kitties.’
Noah hesitated, and I could see his gaze flicking to Finn.
But then, as it had so many times since the Summerween Festival, the sky darkened.
For a second, I thought it was going to split open with torrential rain.
And then it did, although not in the way I’d been expecting, as suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, dozens of crows descended with a simultaneous caw.
Glossy wings flapped furiously as they dove upon the buckets of sunflower seeds and crumbs of pie, beaks flashing as they landed among us, pecking and clawing at everything in sight.
I jumped back. Ordinarily I loved birds, but not when they were screaming bloody murder and crashing down on me like something out of a Hitchcock film.
‘Holy shit,’ shrieked Lara, hiding beneath Jack’s arm. ‘It’s not Halloween yet, you creeps!’
Our group batted and waved at the birds, trying to shoo them away. Magic crackled as the three of us with magic tried to hex the air to deter the birds. Soon the whole maze seethed with crows, the sunflower stalks bending under their weight until they were torn and ragged.
Thankfully, after a few minutes of this chaos – although it felt like a lifetime – Terry appeared, holding a jacket over his head. ‘Quick, come with me. We’ll hide in the greenhouse near the exit until we’ve figured out what’s going on.’
As we followed Terry to shelter, Jack sounding awed at the magical strangeness on display, I squinted out at the magic-tinged Sunflower Maze, wondering how the spells on the place had gone so off-kilter. Something was starting to feel very strange in Whisperwind Cove.
But also, something was starting to feel very telling. Because when I’d jumped to escape the birds, I hadn’t jumped back. I’d jumped towards someone.
And that person was Noah Tucker.