I tried very hard not to think about that time. For a brief while I had thought we were going to lose Gunnar, and the deep sorrow I had felt at the prospect scared me even now, years later.
In the world of the Fae, twins were a rare occurrence that happened every five hundred years or so, an event shrouded in mystery and speculation. Much of it sounded like one of those dark and twisted Grimm’s fairy tales, complete with fierce battles and grisly death. The only way a Fae twin could obtain full powers was upon the death of the other. Out of all the fantastical stories I knew to be true, this was the one I refused to believe. The thought of my world without Gunnar was too awful to consider.
Gunnar bent down and scratched Pye behind her right ear.
“Gunnar.” I forced him to meet my eyes. “What is it?”
He rose slowly and I knew he was delaying the inevitable. “I heard the banshee wail again.”
I went cold from my bones outward. “When?”
“About an hour ago.”
Where was my inner Pollyanna when I needed her? “It’s probably for Suzanne. You’ve heard about letters arriving years after they were mailed. Maybe—”
“That’s not how it works,” he said with a wry smile. “You’d better look up banshees.”
“I know how it works.” I didn’t tell him I had searched banshees on Google while waiting for the men from Montpelier to come and take Suzannne’s body away. “I’m just saying there could be an exception.”
He handed me my coat. “You’ve had a long day. Why don’t I drive?”
The last time Gunnar had driven a car was when we went to the senior prom. “Why would you—” I stopped as the realization hit me. “Now you’re really scaring me.”
My parents had been killed on a crisp, clear December night just like this. I had been asleep in the back at the time, snug beneath a fuzzy mohair blanket and safely tethered by my seat belt. If only they had been so lucky.
I had no conscious memory of the accident, but I had never been able to shake my dislike for cars. My knuckles went all white before I even put the key in the ignition. Driving on ice made me break out in a cold sweat.
“Let’s walk,” I said.
I tried not to notice the look of relief on Gunnar’s face.
Abbey Church, our combination Town Hall/all-purpose meeting place, was a brisk ten-minute walk on a sunny day, but a forty-minute struggle on an icy night. We were the only ones on the street but that didn’t mean we were alone. Even I could sense the energies swirling all around us. Have you ever seen a pavement appear to shimmer during a heat wave? That was what this looked like, except in Sugar Maple it wasn’t an optical illusion. The cold night air practically vibrated with possibilities.
Gunnar looked both ways before he hurried me across the quiet street, even though the only vehicles in sight were parked right in front of the church.
“You’re late!” Lynette said with a pointed look at her watch. “I was afraid you might have—”
Janice jabbed her in the ribs. “She’s here now. That’s what matters.”
“How big a crowd?” I asked as Gunnar swung open the enormous wooden door.
“It’s like a class reunion,” Lynette said happily.
Janice leaned closer. “Simone swirled in but Midge shooed her out again. She still hasn’t forgiven her for seducing Donald behind the bandstand during the solstice celebration last summer.” She inclined her head toward Gunnar, who was now talking to Lilith from the library. “His mother’s here.”
“Isadora?” I groaned. “Where is she?”
“She’s flirting with Manny and Frank and the other old guys from the Home. I know she’s older than dirt but really . . .”
Nobody knew exactly how old Isadora was; the guesses ranged anywhere from over one hundred human years to I-can’t-count-that-high. She was hot-tempered, clearly partial to Dane, sexually voracious, and so beautiful that none of the rest seemed to matter. Her faerie charms were turbocharged, and when she aimed them in your direction, it was like being Tasered.
Not that I knew firsthand. Isadora usually gave me a wide berth. She had made it clear on more than one occasion that she would rather see her sons gelded than hooked up with the likes of me. And I’ll be honest, the thought of Isadora as a mother-in-law made my Still Life with Cats look pretty darn good.
The old Abbey Church had been deconsecrated in 1842 when the Episcopalians decided to head west to become pioneers. Except for two stained glass windows featuring Saint George battling various dragons and the fact that the ceiling vaulted heavenward, you would never know our Town Hall had been a spiritual gathering place. Okay, maybe the organ in the loft and the church bells didn’t exactly scream local government but waste not, want not. After all, this was New England.
Lynette was right. It did feel like a reunion of sorts. The entire Pendragon crew. The Weavers from the Inn. The Harris boys and the Souderbush family were fading in and out near the coffee urn. Even the elusive Simone, who had broken up three marriages last year without even materializing, had taken on more corporeal form for the occasion. She was the wisteria-scented cloud of azure blue drifting lazily overhead.
Isadora was holding court beneath the American flag near one of the Saint George windows. Just as Lynette had said, she had woven a spell around poor Manny and Frank and the other vampires of a certain age. Isadora was smiling at them like they were Brad’s and George’s better-looking older brothers, but trust me, there is nothing sadder than a vampire with a removable upper plate and a subscription to
Modern Maturity.
Isadora shot me a look when I took my place behind the desk and adjusted the microphone, and I flashed an insincere smile in return. It wasn’t that Isadora made me nervous exactly, but there was something about her presence that made me understand how a butterfly felt just before a collector pinned her wings.
Lilith waved to me from across the room. She was our township librarian/historian/secretary, a good-natured troll of Norwegian heritage with hair so red that fire alarms tripped spontaneously when she entered a room. Her husband, Archie, also a troll, ran the electronic repair ship at the foot of Toothaker Bridge.
I gave Lilith the signal and she joined me at the desk then led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge was followed by a spirited rendition of the Sugar Maple anthem.
There was no denying the fact that we were a patriotic bunch. I waited while various villagers dabbed at their red-rimmed eyes with wadded-up Kleenex and then I rapped the gavel down on the maple desktop. “The fourteenth emergency meeting of Sugar Maple Township is called to order.”
And that was when all hell broke loose.
“It’s unconstitutional!” Paul Griggs’s wife, Verna, was the first to weigh in. “What gives the county the right to force a police station down our throats?”
“Our charter,” I said, pointing toward the framed document on the stand near the flag. “Once we incorporated, we gave certain rights to the county. This is one of them.”
That statement didn’t win me any friends.
“Too many rules and regulations if you ask me,” JoJo, a poltergeist of dubious reputation, said. JoJo had an unfortunate habit of spitting small stones when he talked, which explained why Mamie Ferguson was holding her purse over her head. “Since when do we just lie down and let them boss us around? Last I heard, this was a free country.”
“You’re going to take this lying down?” Manny maneuvered his Rascal to a stop in front of me. Someone really needed to tell him to ease up on the Whitestrips. His fangs were practically blinding me. “We’ve been incorporated over three hundred years and now those idiots decide we need police protection?”
“Someone died within our township limits,” I reminded them. “They take death seriously in Montpelier.”
“They take taxes seriously in Montpelier,” Manny’s side-kick Frank bellowed. “Death is just an inconvenience.”
“Manny’s right.” It was Janice’s turn to chime in. “This is about money. They’re probably looking for a way to raise our taxes.”
If you ever want to incite a riot north of New York City, mention raising taxes and see what happens.
“This isn’t about taxes,” I shouted into the microphone. “This is about the fact that we have less than forty-eight hours to figure out how we’re going to live with a cop next door to Sticks & Strings.”
“There’s a full moon coming up on Saturday night,” Johnny Griggs reminded us. “We can pay him a visit he won’t soon forget.”
“Good thinking,” Midge Stallworth volunteered. “There are ways to make a stubborn man see reason.” And most of them involved a puncture wound and a blood draw.
Lilith was in favor of some involuntary herb therapy while Verna thought a well-considered hex involving bladder control and uncontrollable truth-telling might just be what the doctor ordered.
“I’ve been in touch with the Mothers,” Janice said, “and this is only the beginning of our bad luck. We are in trouble, people.”
Thanks a lot, Janice.
Isadora suddenly appeared in front of me in a dazzling display of faerie glamour. A shower of royal purple glitter rained down on us, thick as mountain snow. “It’s your fault,” she said, pointing a long, graceful finger at me. “They might be too polite to say it but I’m not. You’re the one bringing the troubles to our town.”
“No offense, Chloe, but she might have something there.” Colm Weaver and his family materialized atop the lighted globe on the far end of the desk. “It’s been thirty years since a Hobbs woman bore a female child. The primal energy is starting to fade.”
“Just because someone fell through the ice after too many margaritas doesn’t mean the protective spell is wearing off.” I sounded a wee bit defensive but can you blame me? The thought that I was somehow responsible for Suzanne’s death hit me hard. “It was just an accident.”
“Are you really that selfish?” Isadora leaned closer. “Have you given no thought to what you owe this town?”
Only every waking minute of my life, but I refused to give Gunnar’s mother the satisfaction.
“Give me the Book of Spells,” she demanded. “Let me do for this town what you can’t seem to manage.”
Everyone knew what Isadora wanted to do: drag the entire town into the Fae realm beyond the mist, where her power would be supreme. I was gratified to hear an eruption of hisses and catcalls from the back.
“If you care so much for Sugar Maple, why don’t you devise a spell of your own to keep us safe.” Bless Lynette for having the guts to put it out there.
Isadora’s glance was withering.
“We don’t have time to worry about Aerynn’s spell,” I told the assembled villagers with a pointed glance toward Isadora. “We’re going to have a cop strolling down Main Street, grabbing a cappuccino at Fully Caffeinated, picking up his mail at the post office. How long will it take before he figures out this isn’t your average Small Town, USA?”
Lilith’s Archie emitted a cross between a snort and a guffaw. “You watch too much TV.”
No argument there. I singlehandedly kept him in business with emergency calls every time my satellite dish went out.
“Chloe’s right.” All eyes turned toward Lilith. She didn’t speak very often, but when she did, we always listened. “I did a little research this morning and found out Suzanne Marsden was seeing a married politician in Massachusetts.”
For the first time all evening the room fell silent.
Renate slid off the globe and landed on the floor with a thud as she expanded to human size. “Please don’t tell me she was seeing Teddy Kennedy.”
“His name is Dan Sieverts,” Lilith went on. “According to my sources, he plans to announce his run for the governor’s office in March and his people want to make sure there’s nothing about Ms. Marsden’s death that can derail his campaign.”
“Seems to me a dead mistress would be a whole lot less trouble than a live one,” Cyrus Pendragon observed.
A swirl of blue smoke floated down. “Never underestimate the dead, darling,” Simone whispered as she entwined herself around him. I hadn’t seen anything like that since my free preview of
Naughty After Dark.
“Get off my husband, you slut!” Lynette launched herself across the room but Simone was too fast for her. By the time Lynette reached Cyrus, only Simone’s mocking laughter remained.
“Ow!” Cyrus yelped as Lynette’s beringed fist made contact with his upper arm. “She’s gone, Lynnie!”
“I know.” Lynette whacked him again. “Next time don’t enjoy it so much.”
I’m not prone to headaches but a wicked bad one was building behind my right eye. Isadora was watching me with a combination of pity and amusement that set my teeth on edge. She didn’t like me, and the feeling was mutual, but her criticisms had found their mark just the same.
“Come on, people,” I said, rapping the gavel again just for the heck of it. “Let’s get back to our rent-a-cop problem.”
Herding my cats was easier than trying to bring everyone back to the matter at hand after Simone’s display.
According to Lilith’s political contacts, once the rent-a-cop was sure that Suzanne’s death was nothing more than a tragic accident, he would be replaced after a decent period of time by someone local who would be voted in by Sugar Maple residents at a special election.
“Six months,” Lilith said. “That’s the time frame they’re looking at in Montpelier.”
Janice shook her head. “The spell will be broken by then. Three months is all we’ve got and even that’s dicey.”
Sharp-edged purple glitter rained down on me.
“Stop it,” I snapped at Isadora. “Even if I got pregnant tomorrow, I wouldn’t give birth in time to make a difference.”
“The Book is wasted on you as it was wasted on your mother,” Isadora said, favoring me with the kind of withering glance that destroyed lesser mortals. “You’ll never be more than you are today.”
“Take that back,” Lynette demanded.