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  “You need a hobby,” she declared. “Preferably something that gets you as much information about the people that live in this town as possible.”

  “Isn’t that the whole point of these squirrels?” I said.

  “My motto is ‘be prepared.’ I like to have a backup plan. I’m like one of those humans, what are they called? Navy SEALs.”

  I grinned. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I think of when I think of you. And I’m sure they’d all love to be compared to a septuagenarian casting spells on squirrels to spy on her neighbors.”

  “It’s not about looks or aims; it’s about the overall attitude in achieving our individual goals,” Grandma Rosie said to me with a glare. I laughed as we made our way off of Lakeside Trail and into town, where the cobbled streets led to gorgeous, German-style buildings along one side of the lake. Mount Rheanier, one of the tallest mountains in the paranormal world, towered over us on the other side, an imposing figure representing the strength of mother nature.

  I absolutely loved living in Mt. Rheanier. Especially now, in late October, as the leaves were falling from the deciduous trees, covering the cobbles on the streets, and the weather was turning from sweater weather solidly into winter-jacket weather. Fall was my favorite season, and I breathed in the cool air, thankful that I was still breathing and had escaped from the world’s most embarrassing death.

  “How about you come over and we convince your mother to make us some hot chocolate?” Grandma Rosie suggested.

  “Thanks, but I think I’m past hot chocolate and well into alcohol territory,” I replied. “I’m going to head down to The Newt and Cauldron and have a drink.” Or seven.

  “Suit yourself,” Grandma Rosie shrugged. “You’re going to miss out on the first bits of gossip from my new workers.”

  That was completely fine with me, and a few minutes later, the two of us split up, with Grandma Rosie heading home to my mother, and me heading down to The Newt and Cauldron.

  Chapter 3

  The Newt and Cauldron—also known as The Newt to everyone in town—was the local bar for witches and wizards. I stepped inside to find Harold Moss wiping down the counter. I’d gone to high school with Harold; he wasn’t what you’d call the sharpest tool in the shed, but he made a mean long island iced tea.

  His eyebrows rose as soon as he saw me. “A little early, aren’t you?”

  I looked around to notice the place was completely empty. The Newt and Cauldron wasn’t exactly a dive, but it wasn’t a light and airy, modern bar either. The low ceilings were framed with exposed dark beams, high booths with deep green seats I loved sinking into lined the walls, and tall round tables surrounded by equally tall stools sat scattered across the rest of the room. The bar was on the left-hand side, made of dark wood, with bottles stacked on a mirror-backed shelf behind Harold.

  Usually, the place was buzzing with the sound of witches and wizards enjoying a brew after a hard day’s work, but right now, nothing.

  “I guess it’s not quite five o’clock, huh?” I said with a sheepish grin. “It’s been that kind of day.”

  “Must be a bad one if you’re trying to get started on the drinking before noon.”

  I pulled out my phone and grimaced. “To be fair, it’s almost noon.”

  “It’s ten thirty, Ali. I’m not even allowed to serve you for another half an hour.”

  “Can you make an exception? I was just about killed by a giant squirrel this morning.”

  Harold raised an eyebrow. “Well, as long as you get to explain it all to Chief Enforcer Loeb if someone comes in and sees. Long island iced tea?”

  I nodded. “Thanks, Harry. You’re the best.”

  “You know it. Go hide in a booth at the back so anyone who comes in can’t see you drinking.”

  I made my way to one of the booths and sunk into the seat, closing my eyes. What a morning. On the bright side, I figured there was absolutely no way this day could get even more insane.

  I was underestimating the universe.

  Harold brought me a drink a minute later and I shot him a grateful smile as I took a deep sip from the compostable straw. A year ago, Mt. Rheanier had decided to join the myriad of other local municipalities banning plastic straws. Compostable and paper were all that were available, and paper straws just got soggy immediately. I could never tell the difference between plastic and compostable, and this way, I got to feel like I was helping save the planet, so win-win.

  Figuring that Harold would probably need a lot of sweet-talking to serve me a second drink before he was legally allowed to open, I took a long sip of half the drink to get a quick buzz going before settling in to slowly savor the second half. I pulled out my phone and sent a text to Willow, my best friend, but got no reply. I sent another to my sister Leda five minutes later, but again, nothing.

  I supposed I was going to be that person drinking alone in the bar in the middle of the day. Hey, I had earned it. That hour with Grandma Rosie this morning had easily taken at least five years off my life. Day drinking was totally acceptable on days when you’d almost died.

  Thanks to an adolescence of debauchery, if there was one thing I was good at, it was holding my liquor. Over the course of the next couple of hours, I had a few more drinks, and while I could definitely feel my problems washing away from me, I wasn’t so drunk that I didn’t know what was going on around me.

  My rule of thumb was if I stumbled while trying to make it to the bathroom, it was time to go home. Just after one, nature called, and I slipped out of the booth as elegantly as an orca soaring out of the waters of the Pacific. I was still good.

  By now, people had started coming into the bar. It was mostly a lunch crowd; the burgers here weren’t half bad, and the lunch special—a burger and a local craft beer for twelve abras—was a good way to spend some time away from the office.

  My eyes scanned the room to see who I recognized. There was a student from the Academy with long black hair that dropped in front of her face; she was buried nose-deep in a thick textbook, an untouched plate of fries in front of her. A couple of beefy-looking workers sat at one of the tables, enjoying their burgers and beers, and I wondered why they picked the stools when, frankly, they absolutely dwarfed them. But hey, to each their own. Grandma Rosie’s best friend Connie was sitting by herself in the far booth, drinking a pot of tea and eating a bowl of spaghetti, and a trio of young women were sitting at one of the other tables, laughing it up with colorful drinks in front of them. A couple of witches in business suits were seated at one of the booths, papers laid out in front of them, finishing off the clientele for the moment.

  I made my way to the bathroom, checking out my reflection in the mirror. I was definitely regaining my color, which was good. The last time I’d been in here, I had still been on the pale side. I hated to admit how scared I’d been in the encounter with the squirrel. I was the kind of person with a calm, cool, and collected persona, and I wanted to live up to my reputation.

  Somehow, I had a feeling even a giant squirrel wasn’t supposed to make me almost pee my pants with fear.

  Just then, the girl with the black hair made her way into the bathroom, followed closely by the trio of other witches.

  “Come on, Janet,” one blonde witch said to the black-haired one. “Come and hang out with us this afternoon. It’ll be fun.”

  Janet’s reply was mumbled so quietly I wasn’t sure I caught all of it. “Can’t, have to study,” she replied. Or something along those lines, anyway.

  “Oh, come on. It’ll be fun. We’ll go hang out by the lake. Let the sun shine on our faces. You haven’t seen the sun in months, have you? Someone like you, you’re so pale. Come play in the sun with us.”

  “I’d really rather not,” Janet replied. I watched the interaction from my spot at the sink. None of the four seemed to have noticed I was there at all. Now, one of the most important things to know about me was that I hated bullies. I always had. Why couldn’t people just be nice to one another?


  Ok, so I wasn’t always nice to everyone. But if I was mean to someone, it was because they deserved it. Most of the time. But being mean just for the sake of it? No, I wasn’t about to sit here and watch these three bullies make Janet do something she didn’t want to. Besides, given their demeanor, I figured the three girls had a lot more planned than just sitting in the sun. No one sat in the sun at the lake in October.

  “Come on,” one of the other girls implored. “Come with us. We promise it’ll be fun.”

  “Didn’t anyone ever teach you that no means no?” I replied. “That advice isn’t just for wizards.”

  Four pairs of eyes suddenly turned toward me.

  “Who are you?” one of the blonde witches asked, narrowing her eyes and crossing her arms in front of her. Before I had a chance to reply, however, she continued. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. This is a private conversation, and you’re eavesdropping. Didn’t your mother ever teach you that’s wrong, too?”

  “My mother taught me a lot of rules that I’ve since ignored,” I replied with a sly smile. There we go. This was calm, cool, and collected Ali, not terrified-of-a-woodland-creature Ali. “The difference is, the rules I ignore don’t involve bullying others.”

  “Whatever. Call us what you want. We just want to have a fun afternoon with one of our classmates.”

  “And she’s already told you she doesn’t want to, so why don’t you get out of here?”

  “Look, this is really none of your business,” the first blonde witch said again. “Why don’t you just leave? We’re just having a conversation here, and you’re not invited to be a part of it.”

  “Look, girlie. I’ve had a long day, and it’s not even the middle of the afternoon yet. So we have a couple of options here. Either you can leave this poor girl alone and get out of here right now, or I can make you the second most annoying thing I’ve had to deal with today,” I said with a sigh, pulling out my wand. I was absolutely not in the mood for this, but the girl with the black hair was now practically cowering behind me, and I felt bad for her. I didn’t want her to be dragged away by these witches who were almost certainly going to play some sort of mean prank on her.

  Two of the witches backed off, heading toward the door.

  “Good,” I said to them with a smile. “Seriously, just leave right now, and we can forget all of this ever happened.”

  I looked the third girl, who was obviously their leader, dead in the eyes. “Now it’s just you and me. You really don’t want to test me, and especially not today. So what’s it going to be? Are you going to play it smart and leave like your friends just did?”

  I was desperately trying to hide the fact that I absolutely did not, under any circumstances, want to get into a duel with this witch. I had had way enough of crazy spells and trying to win battles for one morning, and more than anything, I just wanted her to go away quietly.

  But I had to make sure she didn’t know that. I stared her down, and her eyes wavered, moving from side to side for a moment. She had to have noticed her friends had abandoned her; there was no way to avoid that fact. Still, she finally steeled herself, pursing her lips and pulling out her own wand.

  I sighed. “Seriously?” I asked. “Is this really how you want to do things? Just go, for everyone’s sake.”

  The witch laughed. “What, and then be the laughingstock of the whole Academy?”

  “You’re going to be the laughingstock of the whole place regardless, but at least this way you get to keep some dignity,” I replied.

  “Nope,” the witch said. “Too bad. You came after me; I have to defend myself.”

  She began muttering a spell, and while a part of me just wanted to curl up into a little ball and hope it didn’t hurt too much, I knew I couldn’t do that. I darted into one of the stalls, avoiding the spell, and a split second later jumped back out while casting one of my own.

  “Rhea, mother of the gods, this witch makes my blood boil, so cover her skin in boils.”

  My spell hit her dead on, and straightaway big, red blotches began to form on the witch’s skin. She looked on with a combination of awe and horror as they developed all over her, starting on her arms and moving to her face and—I assumed—the rest of her body. She began freaking out.

  “What did you do? What did you do? Oh, Rhea, what did you do?” she shrieked, dropping her wand and running out of the bathroom.

  The spell wouldn’t be permanently damaging; Willow could easily use a salve to heal the wounds caused by the boils once the spell was reversed, but it certainly wouldn’t look or feel good until then. I smiled to myself. She had totally deserved it.

  “Thank you,” Janet said from behind me. I turned and looked at her, but her eyes were on the floor.

  “No problem. I’m not a fan of bullies, and I get the feeling that’s what they were to you.”

  The witch nodded. “Yeah, they are. They’re in my classes at the Academy. We’re all in our last year, and I’m studying since I can be called to take my witch’s exam at any time this year. All those witches want to do is party, though, and so they make fun of me. And they try to cast cruel spells on me when we’re by ourselves. A couple of weeks ago, they set my hair on fire in class. The professor had to cast a spell to reverse the damage.”

  “Ugh,” I said, shaking my head. “Well, on the bright side, hopefully they won’t come near you again.”

  “I don’t think they will,” the witch said, daring a small smile. “That’s the most upset I’ve seen Danielle Dashwood in years.”

  “Good,” I said. “Hopefully today will have taught her a lesson, and she’ll leave you alone from now on.”

  “I hope so,” the witch said.

  “What’s your name, anyway?”

  “Janet,” the witch said, holding out a hand, which I shook. “And you’re Althea Everwood, right?”

  I shot her a grin. “I’m that famous, am I? Anyway, call me Ali. Almost everyone does.”

  “Nobody can stop talking about how you figured out who killed Blaze,” Janet said. “I can’t believe you did it. And you were almost killed doing it. That was insane. You’re so cool.”

  I couldn’t help it; a blush crawled up my face. “Oh, well. You know, there was some luck involved. But yeah, I guess I am pretty cool.”

  “You’re even more awesome in person. Thanks again.”

  “No problem. I’ll see you around.”

  Janet left the bathroom looking like she’d just met a celebrity, and I chuckled to myself. I hadn’t realized that I now had small-town celebrity status.

  I left the bathroom and went to the bar to pay my bill; with the way this day was going, I was ready to head back to the shed behind my mom’s cottage, hunker down, and lie in bed watching Netflix until tomorrow. One of my favorite shows, about a witch trying to save the world from an alien invasion, had just dropped a new season, anyway, so it would be a good day for binge-watching.

  Harold chuckled as he made his way over to me. “I see Danielle Dashwood had a bit of a run-in with you in the witches’ bathroom.”

  “How you do know it was me?” I replied, handing over some cash.

  “Well, for one thing, you’re the only person in here who would hex another witch with boils. And secondly, as she ran out of here, her posse following close behind her, she wouldn’t stop cursing that dirty witch Althea and kept shouting that you’d be sorry.”

  “I guess I better go home and quiver in my boots,” I replied, taking my change, and Harold shot me a grin.

  “Next time, do it out here in the main hall. It’s pretty boring in here until around ten at night.”

  “Promise,” I said with a wink, slipping the bills into my pocket and making my way back out into the daylight.

  Chapter 4

  On the way home, I picked up some snacks from the grocery store, and I couldn’t help but realize the teenage cashier was actually looking at me like I was some sort of mythical creature. Had I been the biggest thing in town for
the last couple of weeks and just been oblivious to it?

  How on earth had I managed to solve an actual murder when my observation skills were apparently similar to those of a blind baby giraffe?

  When I got back home, I threw myself onto the old couch that was now perfectly conformed to my shape, covered myself in multiple oversized blankets—I was one of those people who loved to burrow deep into my blanket cavern—and set about watching my new season.

  Sure, there were aliens, but at least there were no giant squirrels. At least, I hoped not.

  Six episodes later, I had eaten my whole bag of chips, drank a can of coke, and was trying to convince myself to get up off the couch and go to the bathroom when there was a knock at my door. I immediately covered myself up with my blankets, in case it was my mom. I didn’t want to have her try to convince me to come over for dinner tonight. I needed a little bit of time to myself before I’d be able to face being in a room with Grandma Rosie again.

  “Ali,” Willow’s voice called through the door. “I know you’re in there. It’s not your grandma. Answer the door. I brought pizza.”

  “You should have opened with the pizza thing,” I said with a grin a moment later as I opened up to let Willow into the shed.

  “What, gracing you with my amazing presence isn’t enough for you?” she asked, doing an elegant twirl before placing the pizza box down on the small kitchen counter. “Besides, I come with gossip.”

  “Ooh, do tell,” I said as I grabbed plates from the cupboard and handed one of them to Willow. She grabbed a piece of pizza and made herself at home on the couch, shoving some of my blankets to the side.

  “Well, it has to do with you, actually.”

  “Danielle Dashwood deserved it, to be fair,” I said with a shrug.