Give up the ghost hallow.., p.1
Give Up The Ghost (Hallow Haven Witch Mysteries Book 9), page 1
Copyright © 2021 by Mara Webb
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Give Up The Ghost
Hallow Haven Witch Mysteries Book 9
Mara Webb
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Thanks for Reading
Mailing List
1
I slipped my feet into the battered pair of sneakers that I’d been wearing all week, secured the laces, and stepped through the doorway that separated my house from the café kitchen. My legs ached, protesting every movement with a twinge of pain in the knees, but it would soon be time for a day off, I just had to get through today and tomorrow.
“Morning,” Tara called, nodding in my direction as I walked past her workstation. Tara was one of the chefs in The Sand Witch, and was carefully loading pastries into boxes that had been ordered for at-home breakfasts by some of our customers.
“Hey,” I replied, tiredness evident in my voice. I could have done with five more hours of sleep and a deep tissue massage but there was nothing I could do about that right now. “How many today?”
“Eleven today,” Tara replied. “None tomorrow, obviously.”
No, none for tomorrow. That was what we had all agreed, no matter how angry the customers over the phone would get, we were not taking delivery orders for tomorrow. I was hosting an event in the café tomorrow and I needed every available minute between now and then to concentrate on the decorations, the food, the fact that I was supposed to have a costume, and the fact that it was scheduled to be a full moon this week.
Okay, so the full moon thing had nothing to do with the event I was planning, but when you’re dating a werewolf you do have to consider these things. Effie shuffled into the kitchen, her hair as vibrant as ever but the dark circles under each eye betraying her exhaustion.
It wasn’t as if all of the food had been prepared manually, we had been using magic to make huge batches of candy, cupcakes with fondant skulls on top, practicing changing the color of the tables in the café to a deep orange or even black. Using so much magic had drained us all of our energy and it was a tiredness I’d never experienced before. Even after months of practicing witchcraft there was still so much to learn.
Obviously there was my personal life that added to the chaos. After a lifetime of growing up as an adopted daughter of one older lady, I had moved to Hallow Haven to discover that, not only was I a witch from a giant family of witches, but that my parents were in fact still alive.
A series of events had led me to them, releasing them from some strange spell that had kept them hidden away for years, and now they were back. I had a mom and dad, both wonderful, enthusiastic people, that were trying to tell me everything they could about where they’d been when the spell had locked them away, asking me questions about my upbringing and… well let’s just say they both love to talk.
I would get out of The Sand Witch after a long day of work and they’d be waiting for me in the living room, wide eyed smiling, with a photo album or a notepad of conversation topics to cover. They were keen to make up for lost time.
They were like this with Miller too, my werewolf boyfriend who also happened to be the Sheriff of the Hallow Haven islands and the guardian of my fellow peacekeeper, Mabel. I’d taken care of some of my peacekeeper duties over the last couple of weeks, but the lead up to the week of Halloween had meant I’d stayed home to make food and practice magic with Effie and my parents.
The powers required to make a few dozen cupcakes were minimal, at this point I could do those spells in my sleep. The real magic had been used to learn defensive spells, all the different methods I might utilize to protect Hallow Haven – and myself – when my Aunt Darcy decided to strike.
It had basically been a bootcamp since I brought my mom and dad back, but added into the mix was the fact that I was the peacekeeper for all of the islands and had to deal with any random grievances that came up with the residence as well as running the café.
Admittedly, the café didn’t need to be such a huge priority, but I think I needed it as an excuse to get away from my dad for a few hours. Darcy was his sister, she was a witch that I had never known whether I could trust or not, but now I knew that she was planning something.
For months she had been sending runes out to every house in Hallow Haven, expanding her reach like an ever-increasing spiderweb. These runes would act like a signal boost, allowing her to become increasingly powerful. My dad had three sisters, Darcy being one of them, and he told me that her interest in utilizing ‘the power of three’ for nefarious purposes had become increasingly apparent.
All of the Parker siblings were now back, my dad, his sister Sage, and now my Aunt Fay. Fay was dead, it had been her funeral that I had attended all those years ago, but even in her ghost form it would be possible for Darcy to draw on her powers and use the three Parker sisters to fulfill her sinister schemes.
“There’s coffee,” Effie said, trying to muster up the energy to point toward the machine that was loudly grinding roasted beans. “I just need two cups and then I’ll be good to go.”
“Once tomorrow is over, then we can chill,” I replied.
“Tomorrow is the easy part,” Kate laughed. She bounced into the room and executed a form-perfect pirouette before grabbing a mug and skipping towards the coffee machine. I wanted to say that she looked like the last person in this kitchen that needed the caffeine boost, but I just slumped against the stainless-steel counter instead.
“Oh?” Effie said, raising an eyebrow at her sister.
“Yeah, well tomorrow is just a buffet and a string of bunting or two. I think battling some crazy old witch in some giant, hardcore, magical show down is going to be way harder,” Kate exclaimed, her coffee mug now in position as she pushed the button.
“She has a point,” Ryder said, making all four of us jump. My guardian, Ryder, had a habit of moving so silently that he would seemingly appear out of nowhere. Being a vampire meant that he could move impossibly fast, too. He was designed to be the perfect hunter, but it had the downside of terrifying people by accident when he just wanted to join in with a conversation.
“Have you given anymore thought to my idea of putting a GPS chip in one of your shoes?” Kate asked. “I feel like you are taking years off our lives by scaring us like this, I’m probably one more fright away from having a full-blown heart attack.”
“I’m not doing it on purpose, if that helps,” Ryder shrugged.
“It doesn’t,” Effie smirked.
“And done!” Tara announced. She had flinched at Ryder’s arrival like the rest of us, then quickly returned to her work and was now stood beside eleven boxes of breakfast goods ready to roll out the door. “You know what to do!”
“Urgh,” I complained. I pulled open the drawer behind me so that I could retrieve the dice we had made out of an empty cereal box. On each of the six faces of the dice were pictures of either Effie, Tara, Fern, Kate, Rosie or myself. We would roll the dice and whoever it landed on would be the one delivering the breakfast boxes.
I had argued – emphatically may I add – that as the entire breakfast box thing was Kate’s idea that she should be the one delivering all of them, but I’d been outvoted. Kate had two other jobs, she didn’t even technically work at The Sand Witch, so her schedule was too unpredictable.
“Why don’t I deliver them? I’d be back in less than five minutes,” Ryder suggested.
“I already said no to that,” I muttered.
“Why is that exactly?” Fern grumbled, having entered the room at the sound of the drawer opening.
“Because Darcy is the one that turned him into a vampire and the one that made him the amulet that allows him to travel around in daylight without bursting into flames. Do you all remember how we don’t trust Darcy anymore? She could do something to his amulet, switch it off or something,” I said, flustered.
“I don’t think you can switch something like that off,” Fern said under her breath.
“It’s not a risk I’m willing to take. I’m not having you running all over the main island with a bunch of Danish’s if there is even the slightest chance that you get killed, I feel like that’s not unreasonable,” I snapped. Kate and Effie both whistled and widened their eyes, before laughing. “I’m not crazy!”
“If you have to tell people you aren’t crazy then you are probably already in trouble,” Tara nodded.
“Let’s just roll the dice,” I replied, tossing the cardboard box along the counter. Of course it landed on me, my photograph facing toward the ceiling and causing the other four contestants that were in the room to let out a sigh of relief. Rosie was likely in the main part of the café getting ready for the day of customers, a place I’d rather be this morning.
“Sadie, let me—” Ryder began.
“Nope, I can do it,” I interrupted. He reached to grab my hand and pull me aside for a private conversation, the feel of his skin initially ice cold.
“Listen, you can’t be going out by yourself for the very same reason that you don’t think it’s safe for me,” he explained. “No one has seen Darcy for weeks, we don’t know what she is up to and I think that you would be a prime target. You are her biggest threat,” he continued.
I looked up into his eyes, the amber ring around the hazelnut browns, and wondered if he knew. I’d been taking baths recently, determined to hear Darcy’s voice in the water like I had when I’d visited the dark island all those months ago. For weeks there was nothing, but that had changed.
I think she knew I was seeking her out, so as I had submerged myself into the bathwater I’d heard her laugh. It was brief, such a short sound that I almost questioned whether I’d heard it at all. The next time I heard her she had whispered my name like it was a secret. ‘Sadie’, she’d said, over and over.
The last time she had spoken to me there had been a warning, or at least that’s how I’d interpreted it. ‘Ryder’s fate is in your hands.’
I had told my parents, but that was it. I hadn’t told Effie or Kate, I hadn’t told Miller, and I certainly hadn’t told Ryder. My dad thought that it was just a ploy to get into my head, that she was trying to shake me. If that was her intention then she had been successful.
Tara stepped towards me to hand over a folded piece of paper and a small key, that was for the bike lock.
“I’ll be fine, I have my cell phone if there’s an emergency and I’ll be straight back,” I assured him. Ryder eyed me suspiciously, and I suspected that he may try to follow me anyway.
“Why don’t you have a car yet?” he grumbled.
“Why don’t you?”
“I had one, it just… I took it to get serviced and they quoted this crazy price to fix the engine, it was leaking coolant or something— I can move faster than a car can at this point so there was no need to fix it!”
“Sure,” I smirked. “It’s first thing in the morning, evil stuff always happens when it’s dark out, everyone knows it!” I unfolded the paper in my hand and looked at the list of addresses. I only had three stops, one address had ordered nine boxes. “You will hardly notice I’m gone! Why don’t you help Effie put the skeletons together for tomorrow? Make yourself useful.”
“Can’t she use her magic?” he said, looking over his shoulder at Effie who had just polished off a third cup of coffee.
“She’s about five minutes away from getting all jittery and weird, so I’m putting you in charge,” I smiled.
“There and back, no detours,” he warned.
“Yes, Sir,” I replied, saluting and clicking my heels together in mockery of his assertive tone. Three addresses, and they were all on this side of the island according to the map that Tara had drawn. I recognized the name of one of the streets, it was in the Lower Ground near where Kate and Effie lived. Tara’s drawing suggested the next address was two streets over from the first, and the big order was being delivered to Primrose Hill.
Was that the name of a building? Would I just be delivering food to some people picnicking in an empty field? I’d never heard of it before, but it would soon be the only place I thought about.
2
I had on a pair of scratched sunglasses, something I’d fished out the bottom of an old purse in the hopes of being able to see as I cycled around the island in the early light. All the squinting had started to give me headaches and I had too much to do today to be worrying about that.
My shorts and tank top allowed the breeze to cool me down as I pedaled up the hill away from address number one. Getting to the Lower Ground had been simple enough, I’d walked the bike across the sand of the beach where the café was located before hopping aboard to cycle along the high street and racing down the slopes towards my first stop.
I had taken payment, stashed the money into my fanny-pack and continued on to the next stop. When I knocked on the emerald-green door of my second customer, some of the paint had chipped away and clung to my knuckles. As I waited for someone to answer, I carefully removed the box from the pile that was secured to the back of the bike and re-secured the remaining packages.
The sound of movement inside the house was soon followed by the creaking of the door hinges, revealing a woman with snow-white curls and glasses that hung on a chain around her neck. She was hunched over, holding onto the door handle to balance herself, layered in far too many clothes given the heat. The octogenarian stared through the thick lenses and then suddenly seemed to remember that she’d ordered something.
“You must be the box people, the box person, sorry,” she chuckled.
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied.
“My daughter is heading over and I think it’s time for ‘the talk’ so I figured a good breakfast was the way to go,” she said. “Anyway here’s the money you need, buy yourself something nice!”
“Er… thank you,” I smiled, a little confused by the interaction. I handed her the box and took the money from her unstable hand. There was something unusual about the skin on the hand that she had stretch out towards me, it looked a little speckled. Probably liver spots, or age spots, whatever they were called I was sure it was related to her age.
“I have to get to work you know, if I’m late again they might steal my purse!” She closed the door with such force that the living room window seemed to tremble. Maybe she had dementia, who was I supposed to call about that? I didn’t know if she lived alone or not, but I could find that out probably. Maybe I could circle back after work this afternoon.
I remounted my bike and double-checked Tara’s map. Primrose Hill was slightly further up the same road, a gentle incline that hopefully wouldn’t cause me to sweat anymore than I already was. After a few minutes of cycling, the row of houses ended and a large, gated facility came into view.
A tall fence surrounded wildflowers and trees, I could hear running water as if there were a fountain somewhere nearby and the tall pillars either side of the entrance to the area bore silver plaques which read ‘Primrose Hill, ID required’.
What was I looking at? There was no tall structure anywhere that suggested that it was an office block, it didn’t look like a military base – not that I’d ever seen any in real life – and there had been no warning signs on the road that lead up to the gate to suggest it was off-limits or anything. I jumped off the bike and walked it to the gate, peering through the bars to get a better look.
I could see clusters of single-story buildings, small houses with ramp access and large windows. I looked at the address on the sheet in my hand again, wondering if I had made a mistake. It just looked weird, I had a strange feeling about it and I wasn’t sure if my intuition was trying to warn me a bout something. Should I call Ryder? What would I even say? ‘Hey, I think I need my guardian here because this place looks too serene’.
It didn’t feel like a guardian issue, but it probably was something that Miller could help with. Not in his Sheriff capacity, but rather his reassuring-boyfriend capacity. I pulled my cell phone out of the fanny-pack and pressed his name in my recent call list.
“Hey, what’s up?” he answered.
“Nothing, I think,” I hummed, staring through the bars and the silence of the place I was hoping to enter.
“You sound worried, what’s going on?”
“I’m at Primrose Hill,” I replied.
“So soon?” he laughed.
“What does that mean? What is this place?”
“It’s a retirement village, Sadie. I’d say you have a few more years of independence ahead of you before you need to worry about moving into a place like that,” he teased.
