Chapter 14
ALDRIC
Ihave, in the course of several centuries, seen a great many things that defied explanation.
I’ve watched the tide turn against itself in a storm that left meteorologists questioning what happened.
I have seen the old woods do things to unwelcome visitors that I wish I could forget.
I’ve sat in the Hex & Hearth while Elara, without so much as raising her voice, and with no more effort than it took to pour a drink, drove a powerful evil force from Driftwood Pointe.
So, I thought I had a reasonable grasp on what could surprise me.
That was until today, with Waverly Anderson.
There was something about her. Something magical, even though there was no evidence whatsoever of magic. But I couldn’t ignore the facts. The way she looked at Mr. McFluffinstuff, as if she saw him for who he truly was. How could she know there was something different about him?
Her comment about odd things played over and over in my head.
I was willing to shrug these off as the hopeful thinking of a man clearly attracted to a woman he couldn’t have—until we passed by the Town Green.
Harold Pembrook, who often sat people watching on the Town Green, had been dead since 1923. In over a hundred years of milling around Driftwood Pointe, he had yet to be seen by a human mortal. Or so he said.
Today, that changed. As a Fae, I was, of course, able to see and speak with Harold. But when Waverly stopped and looked in his direction, I stopped too. And when Harold tipped his top hat, she—Waverly—lowered her head and curtsied back. Harold looked as shocked as I was.
Waverly then continued down the sidewalk as if nothing had happened. I stood rooted to the spot. Harold appeared at my side.
“She’s human,” I said, side-eyeing Harold’s wispy appearance. “Isn’t she?”
“Yes, don’t sense anything else,” his raspy voice told me as we exchanged glances.
“Curious.” I hurried to catch up with Waverly.
Humans did not see Harold Pembrook. And they especially did not curtsy to him.
“Ah, Waverly,” my brain raced to approach the topic appropriately. “Why did you stop and curtsy?”
“It seemed the polite thing to do,” she said, turning to face me.
“Excuse me—what do you mean, the polite thing to do?”
“The man dressed in period clothing, wearing a top hat, tipped it to me. So, I thought the proper thing to do was curtsy back.” She tilted her adorable head to the side. “Was I wrong?”
“No,” I shook my head. “I mean—yes, sure, no. No, you weren’t wrong.” Damn my Fae inability to lie.
“Is he in a play or a production? His clothing looked very authentic.”
She waited for me to answer, and when I didn’t—because I couldn’t—she shrugged, turned, and headed back the way she was going. Tucking Gerald back into her pocket, she called back, suggesting we visit The Apothecary.
She could see him!
She was, I was discovering, an extraordinarily excellent observer. Not in the way visitors usually were, but in the way of someone searching for the things others tried to hide—and paying close attention once she found them.
“Waverly, forgive me for not asking sooner. What do you write?” I asked as we made our way to The Apothecary.
“What?” Spinning on her heel, she flung her hands out to her sides, mouth open in shock, her already large, soul-searching eyes growing even bigger. “You mean to tell me you don’t know? Haven’t you done an extensive search on me?”
“I —” was all I could manage. She had me over a barrel. I hadn’t searched her. Last night, my infatuation had prevented me from thinking of doing that. “I—”
She laughed and placed her hand on my forearm. “Oh, if you could see your face.” She continued laughing. “I write both paranormal and occult suspense and mysteries, but I love writing horror.” She smiled and carried on down the street.
And for the second time that day, her words surprised me.
This delightful woman with pencils stuck in her hair, wearing overalls, writes occult horror?
“Aldric, are you coming?”
“You,” I pointed at her. “Adorable little you writes horror?” I blinked. “You?”
“Yes. Do you have a problem with that?” She squared up and lifted herself onto her tiptoes.
“I’ll have you know I have ninety-nine books out.
And a large superfan following. You know why?
Because I specialize in gruesomely wounding my readers in such a way that they must finish the book in desperation to see how it ends. ”
“But you?” I said before my brain caught up with my voice.
“Why is that so shocking?” She put her hands on her hips. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re one of those ‘women can’t write horror’ men. Damn, I had such high hopes for you.”
As if the world flew back into focus, I raised my hand to stop her.
“I’m not—forgive me, I meant no disrespect. I was just shocked. The mayor didn’t tell me anything about you, and to be fair, he didn’t even tell me your name.” I put my hand out to shake hers. “I was just surprised that someone so, so —”
“I think the word you used was adorable.” Waverly smiled, shaking my hand. “And, sir, let this be a lesson not to judge a book by its cover.” She winked, spun around, and headed back in the direction we’d been going, leaving me standing there with a grin on my face.
One thing was certain: Waverly, without knowing it, knew exactly how to get to me—in all the right ways.
I adored a woman confident enough to stand up to me and give it right back.
I watched her walk away. She was more than beautiful.
She was the kind of woman a man could cherish.
And her personality was simply perfection.
Why did she have to be human? And yet she had seen magic. How was that possible? I sighed and resolved myself to the fact that I could not pursue her, no matter how attracted and intrigued I was.
I hurried to catch up.
As we walked, she had Gerald out again, capturing ambient sounds while making quiet notes in a running commentary I was sure I was only partially meant to hear.
“The town,” she spoke into the microphone, “has a specific smell. Old wood and salt, but there’s something else underneath that I don’t have a word for yet. Filing for later.”
How did she know that? Know that there’s something else here. Because there was—and no human should be able to sense it.
She was nearly giddy when we stepped into The Apothecary, the bell chiming our arrival.
Genesis, who ran it, was discreet and professional, and had been keeping the magical supply operation running under a perfectly convincing cover of herbal remedies and artisanal candles for years.
The shelves facing the door were entirely ordinary.
The shelves toward the back required knowing what you were looking for.
“This place is exactly what you imagine when you think of an apothecary,” Waverly announced, beaming.
I positioned myself near the entrance and carefully watched her move through the shop, curious what she would find.
She read labels, then photographed them.
She picked up a bundle of dried mugwort, smelled it, and nodded to herself, making a note to Gerald that suggested she was already working out how to use it in a scene.
She moved to the next aisle and picked up a bottle of some sort of pink liquid. But it wasn’t the bottle she was fixated on. Waverly was staring at the shelf above it with an odd expression.
“Interesting,” she said.
“Hmm. I’m sorry—what was that?”
“That blue bottle.” She pointed to it. “It wasn’t there a second ago.”
I looked at the shelf. A small blue bottle sat between two larger green ones, clearly in the wrong spot. Genesis must be training someone new to stock the shelves. Either that, or the shop itself had decided to be helpful.
“Are you sure?” I asked, unable to lie.
“No—it wasn’t.” She tilted her head. “Things do that around me sometimes. Appear. Disappear. Move from where I left them. That sort of thing.” She picked up the blue bottle, and I managed, with considerable effort, not to cross the shop and rip it from her hands because that particular bottle was something that should have burned human skin on contact.
And yet there it sat in her palm like a perfectly ordinary piece of glass.
“My cleaning lady quit without notice. She said my apartment was haunted.” A pause.
“For the record, it’s not haunted. But I still gave her a very good reference. ”
She set the bottle back and pulled out Gerald.
“Note—apothecary on Harbor Street, 1887, bottles with interesting labels, possible setting for chapter four or the scene where someone gets poisoned. And it’s gone.
” Waverly turned slowly, her eyebrows disappearing into her hairline.
She raised her hand and pointed to the now-empty spot on the shelf where the bottle had just been. “I rest my case. You saw that, right?”
I blew out a slow breath. It was physically impossible for me to lie directly to her.
Over the centuries, I had mastered the ability to speak while saying nothing at all.
This time, I sucked in my cheeks and held her gaze.
Thankfully, she moved to the next aisle.
I immediately bent at the waist and took several steadying breaths.
Damn. This is going to be the longest day in Fae history.
I watched her and tried once more to sense magic in her.
Nothing. That made no sense. There were things here I didn’t understand. Something was definitely going on.
“Hello, Aldric,” Genesis smiled, emerging from the back room.
“Genesis, good to see you. This is Waverly Anderson, author extraordinaire.”
I stepped back, allowing the ladies to conduct their business. I needed to talk to someone about these occurrences, and I knew exactly who that someone was. Just as soon as—
“Earth to Aldric.” Waverly touched my arm.
“Sorry—yes?” I blinked.
“I asked how you felt about getting lunch.”
“Lunch. Yes, let’s do that.”
“You must have been thinking about something good to be that far gone.” She walked through the door I was holding open for her.
I said the only thing I could. “I was.”
The Driftwood Pointe Diner wore its beach colors the way old seaside towns do—not as a theme, but as a fact of their location.
Local artists’ paintings covered every wall, and the whole place smelled like a grandmother’s kitchen on a Sunday afternoon.
This was the type of diner where the smells enticed people inside, the decor entertained them, and the food kept them coming back. We took a table by the window.
I watched her peruse the menu and thought about how to ask what I wanted to without asking it directly—a skill I had spent centuries developing.
“So, you write paranormal stories,” I said finally. “Any about magic?”
“Yes, several.” She peered over the top of the menu at me. “What’s good here?”
“Everything,” I said. “So, tell me—what got you interested in writing stories like that?”
“Hmm.” She closed the menu. “I went on vacation to a small town and while I was there, I got an idea for a story. I’d never written anything before, but the story kept speaking to me.
So, I wrote it. My old neighbor, who was a dear friend of mine, encouraged me to send it to a friend of hers who was a publisher. So, I did.”
“And the publisher loved it?”
“Nope. She hated it. She published historical romance novels. But instead of throwing it away, she very kindly sent it to a publisher who dealt with my genres. And luckily for me, she loved the story. We’ve been in business ever since.”
The server came and took our orders. We both went with the daily special, seafood-stuffed baked potatoes.
“What was the story about?”
Waverly smiled. “A woman who has her powers bound and is forced to live knowing she has them but can’t use them. In the end, it drives her to madness.”
I nodded. “Bindings can be very traumatic.”
“Is it my turn to ask you a question?” Waverly tilted her head to the right, her large, expressive eyes blinking behind the blue glasses she wore today.
I dreaded the idea but felt I had no choice. “Sure.”
“What’s your story?”
Relying heavily on my poker face, I forced myself not to flinch or answer too quickly.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve seen people’s reactions when I tell them about the odd things that happen to me.
And this morning, when I saw the man tip his hat, I saw you both look shocked.
I also saw you try to hide your reaction.
Then, when the bottle disappeared, you acted like it was an everyday occurrence.
You didn’t make a face or anything, and I think that was you hiding your reaction again.
Which left me asking myself why.” She folded her hands on the table. “So. What’s your story?”
Just then, the server brought our drinks. I took a long sip of coffee and thought carefully about how I was going to answer her. Glancing her way, I found her watching me, waiting.
“I don’t know what to say.” Technically true—I didn’t know how to answer. I couldn’t say I hadn’t seen those things happen—that would be a lie, and I was incapable of that. Nor could I pretend I didn’t know what she was talking about. Also a lie.
She looked sideways at me. “You don’t know what to say because you can’t say anything or because you think I’m a lunatic and you’re humoring me?” She leaned back and raised her left eyebrow. “Well?”
Damn. Now what?
I looked at her across the diner table—blue glasses, pencil in her hair, Gerald sitting between us like a judgmental little chaperone.
“I,” I said, “think you are telling the truth.” I couldn’t have these conversations with her. Without question, I needed to find a way to slip away from Waverly this afternoon for an hour and visit Elara.
Waverly looked stunned. She leaned forward until her chest was nearly against the table. “You honestly believe me?”
I leaned forward too. “I honestly do.”
“Huh?” She sat back. Then, after a moment, she smiled—a sweet, genuine smile—and reached across to pat the back of my hand. “Thank you.” She left her hand on mine.
And naturally, this was the precise moment the server arrived with our lunch. Waverly removed her hand much too soon for my liking.