7. Freddie
Freddie
Watching Callum McKinley squirm is, without a doubt, my favorite new morning entertainment.
He keeps shoveling monstrous forkfuls of scrambled eggs and buttered biscuit into his mouth like his body is desperately craving calories to process the insanity, but his eyes are wide, darting from Gerry and Betty’s floating figures straight back to Delphi.
He swallows hard, blinking at my aunt in utter disbelief. “What do you mean, a hundred years?”
Delphi takes a calm, unhurried sip of her herbal tea, letting the silence stretch just long enough to make him chew a little faster. “I mean exactly what I said. You’ve obviously gathered by now that Amberhollow isn’t your average sleepy mountain town.”
She sets her porcelain cup back down on the saucer with a delicate clink and gestures with a finger toward the arched bay window beside our table. “Take a look out there.”
Callum hesitates for half a second before turning his head, and I lean back against the wooden booth, resting my chin in my hand so I can watch his face as he takes it in.
Outside, the morning fog is rolling off the cobblestones of Main Street, exposing the daily circus I’ve grown up with. To me, it’s just another day. To a detective from Tennessee, it probably looks like a fever dream.
Right at the corner of the town square, Old Man Higgins—or his semi-transparent, pale blue phantom—is floating two feet above the asphalt holding a glowing red sign.
He’s volunteering as the morning crossing guard, ushering a cluster of local kids across the street.
A little girl with tiny imp horns poking through her messy blonde pigtails skips past him, followed by a boy whose shimmering blue scales glint in the sunlight, and two young witches arguing over who gets to carry a bubbling, thermos-sized mini cauldron.
Across the street, the central park is bursting with the morning farmers market.
Wooden stalls draped in lace and gingham cloths are loaded down with produce you definitely can’t buy at a Kroger: crisp crimson apples that literally glow from the inside out, bundles of dark purple moonflowers opening up in the shade, jars of golden starlight honey, dried bundles of nightmare-root, and clusters of phosphorescent mushrooms pulsing like tiny neon lamps on a bed of damp moss.
“Is that…” Callum starts, trailing off as a shadow glides across the glass.
We both tilt our heads up. A young warlock in a thrifted flannel and worn-in Vans soars low over the maple trees on a polished mahogany broomstick.
A heavy leather satchel slung across his chest sways as he makes a tight, graceful banking turn around the clock tower, tossing a rolled-up morning paper right onto the front porch of the bakery before pulling up into the clouds.
“Town mail delivery,” I explain, tracing a fingernail along the cool window glass. “Broom couriers handle the fast stuff.”
Callum’s eyes travel down the block, taking in the row of storefronts bathed in the morning light.
Right beside the bakery sits The Raven’s Quill—our local spell bookstore where you can buy charms for everything from fixing a leaky pipe to making your ex stub his big toe every time he thinks of you.
Further down the row is Stitch & Seam, a tailor shop with front display mannequins wearing enchanted velvet cloaks that physically adjust their lining to the weather.
Next to that is the glowing display window of Wick & Willow for candles and crystals, and at the end of the strip, the double bay doors of O’Malley’s Broom Repair & Garage, where a guy in grease-stained coveralls is jump-starting a vintage wooden broom handle with a fistful of spark-charms.
“There are ancient protective wards running along the entire ridge of the valley,” I say gently, drawing his attention back to the table.
“Amberhollow is sealed inside a Veil. It shields us, bending reality around the town so we stay completely hidden from the outside world. That’s why your GPS probably stopped working when you crossed the tree line last night. ”
Callum sets his fork down against the edge of his plate. He reaches up and slowly rubs a large. calloused hand over his mustache, dragging his fingers down his neck—a small habit I’m already starting to realize is his main tell when he’s anxious.
“None of this makes any damn sense,” he mutters, shaking his head as he stares back out the window at the ghost waving to a little goblin kid. “It feels like something I watched in a movie when I was a kid.”
Delphi nods slowly, her gaze softening just a fraction. “I know this is a lot to digest, Callum. It’s overwhelming.”
Callum grips the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turn white. “Okay. Fine. So how am I supposed to get home if we’re sealed inside some kind of magic forcefield? And do you actually have people here who can work on my truck, or is that a dead end too?”
Delphi clears her throat, offering him a wincing, sympathetic smile. “Well…see, that’s where things get a bit complicated. Right now? You can’t.”
Callum chokes on a bite of scrambled eggs, coughing into his fist as his head snaps up. “What the hell do you mean, I can’t?”
“The Veil that’s been protecting Amberhollow for centuries is weakening,” Delphi explains, her tone turning somber.
“People—and creatures—have started disappearing and Mayor Brightfang secured the border patrol months ago. Nobody goes out, and nobody comes in until we figure out where those folks went and how to reinforce the wards.”
Callum stares at her, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “That’s not an option. I have to get home. I have a family, a squad waiting on me, active cases sitting on my desk—”
“Calm down and take a breath,” Delphi says, holding up a hand. “I want this fixed just as quickly as you do. The elder witches in town are working on a solution around the clock, along with her parents.” She tilts her head toward me, giving a subtle nod.
Callum leans forward, his broad chest practically crushing the edge of the wooden table. His voice gets louder, and that smooth Scottish accent of his thickens up real fast, dropping an octave. “So you’re telling me I’m just…stuck here? In a…a what? A ghost town?”
“For the time being, yes,” Delphi sighs, resting her hands on the table. “And I truly am sorry. The last thing any of us needed was an outsider stumbling through a rift right now.”
Before Callum can blow a fuse, Martha—one of the inn’s kitchen cooks—pops her head through the swinging wooden doors, wiping her hands on a flour-dusted apron. “Delphi! We need you in the kitchen! The morning batch of cinnamon rolls is floating again.”
Delphi doesn’t even look surprised. She just lets out a tired breath and pushes back her chair.
“Duty calls.” She looks down at Callum. “Again, I am so sorry. As long as you’re stuck here, you have a roof over your head and a warm bed, free of charge.
I’ll see what I can do about your truck. We’ll talk more later.”
With a quick, graceful turn, she heads off toward the kitchen, leaving a silence in her wake so thick you could cut it with a butter knife.
Callum slumps back in his chair, rubbing both hands down his face with a long, agonized groan. “What the fuck am I supposed to do now?”
“Honestly? Take a beat,” I say softly, twirling my coffee mug between my hands.
“Amberhollow really isn’t that bad once you get past the whole ‘trapped in a magical pocket’ thing.
The coffee is top-tier, there’s no rush-hour traffic, the air smells like fresh pine instead of exhaust. It could be a hell of a lot worse. ”
He drops his hands. “What am I supposed to tell my family? I can’t just drop off the face of the earth!”
I lean back, crossing my arms over my chest. “How often do you even see them?”
“At least once or twice a week,” he says, his tone clipped. “I go visit my Gran every Sunday after my shift. And I call my younger sister every Tuesday and Thursday night.”
I blink, caught off guard by the sheer sincerity of it. “Wait, really? God, why couldn’t you have a normal, wonderfully dysfunctional family like everyone else? Like, one that wouldn’t even notice if you went missing for a month or so?”
The second the words leave my mouth, Callum’s posture shifts.
The tense, angry line of his shoulders drops, and his eyes soften—not with annoyance, but with a sudden withdrawal that feels like a physical punch to my gut. He looks down at his plate, his fingers tightening around the handle of his mug.
Oof.
I struck a nerve. A big one.
Before I can stop it, that prickle of magic at the back of my neck flares up—the same intuitive pull I felt last night.
It reaches out toward him, catching on the weight hanging around his shoulders, finding that same profound, aching sadness I saw in him yesterday.
The sort of grief that sits in a person’s bones and settles down for the long haul.
I swallow hard, my playful mood suddenly evaporating into thin air. “Something happened to your family…didn’t it?”
Callum’s head snaps up, his eyes locking onto mine, entirely caught off guard. “How the hell do you know that?”
We answer at the exact same time: “Magic.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling, but Callum’s expression suddenly shifts. A spark flares in his eyes, and he snaps his fingers in the air between us.
“Wait a minute, Winifred—”
“What did you just call me?” I interrupt, narrowing my eyes at him.
A tiny, wicked little smirk touches the corner of his mouth. It’s the first real spark of humor I’ve seen on his face all morning. “Winifred. Because that’s your name, isn’t it?”
“Okay, first of all, I hate it,” I say, pointing a finger at him. “We’ve been over this. I go by Freddie. Winifred sounds like a woman who owns forty cats and spins her own sheep wool.”
Callum gives me a quick, effortless wink that hits me like a lightning strike right in the center of my chest. “Whatever you say, Winifred.”