Jessica
To stop those who speak ill of thee, dip their names in honey. Henceforth the only words they speak of thee will be sweet.
Goody Fletcher, Book of Useful Household Tips
It was hard to focus on work with Derrick Winters sitting in my shop.
It wasn’t only because every time I glanced in that direction, there he was, reminding me of West Harbor’s impending doom—not to mention that kiss we’d shared.
It was also because of how fast word had spread that he was there. West Harbor was a small enough town that everyone knew everyone else’s business (and what they didn’t know, they made up).
I realized that the moment I felt a tug on my sleeve as I was trying to refold a decimated pile of summer stretch capris just before closing, and saw Dina standing beside me, her dark eyes huge.
“Oh my God, Jess,” she said. “Tell me it’s true.”
For some reason I thought she was talking about the hailstorm Rosalie had created to demolish my car. “Oh, it’s true. She nearly killed me this time.”
“What? Who nearly killed you?” Dina was confused. “What are you talking about?”
Dina wasn’t the only one who was confused. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that that’s him, isn’t it?” She nodded toward Derrick, still sitting in the Friends and Family Chair with Pye curled in his lap, his gaze on a pair of older women lingering by the crystal display near the door, but who actually had eyes on only one item: him. “Has he really been sitting there all afternoon?”
“Um. Yes.”
When Derrick had pulled into a parking space close to Enchantments to drop me off, I’d removed my seat belt and reached for the car door handle, saying brightly, “Well, thanks for the ride. The shop closes at seven, so I’ll see you at home around then.”
I probably shouldn’t have been surprised when he’d replied, “I’m coming in with you.”
“You are? Why?”
“In case you’ve forgotten, you were seriously injured a few hours ago.” He undid his own seat belt. “I’m not going to allow that to happen again. I’m staying with you until the Bringer of Light has been trained and you’ve both saved this town.”
“But you can’t just hang around inside a women’s clothing shop.”
“Watch me.”
He’d then proceeded to do just that.
I had to admit, his presence didn’t seem to adversely affect transactions—if anything, they went up. I had to call in my assistant sales manager, Zahrah—even though I’d given her the day off—for emergency reinforcement since so many people were showing up and actually making purchases. The only thing Derrick’s being at Enchantments seemed to negatively affect was my ability to concentrate.
“Let me guess,” I said to Dina. “Mama G.”
“You got that right. I think she called every single person in her contact list.” Dina took half the pile of capris I’d been folding and began neatly stacking them back into their rack. “Pretty good for business, though, huh? It looks like you have as many customers in here on the Monday after the big sale as you had over the weekend during the sale. And they aren’t all looky-loos.” Her gaze landed on the two older women by the door. “Well, maybe some of them are.”
“That’s all anybody is talking about?” I asked. “The fact that there’s some guy sitting in my shop? Nothing else?”
“What else would they be talking about?” Dina asked, puzzled.
She hadn’t heard. No one was talking about the freak hailstorm at the high school.
She’d find out about it eventually. Sal was bound to mention it. His own car might not have been damaged—faculty parking was in the back—but others certainly had.
So she’d find out. I’d tell her about Bluebell—and Billy—eventually. But not now. Too many people could overhear.
“And he isn’t some guy, Jess,” Dina went on. She shook her head as she gazed at Derrick. “I don’t blame those two over there for staring. Why didn’t you tell me about those shoulders? And those cheekbones! You could grate parmesan on those, they’re so sharp.”
“Dina.” I turned to put the rest of the capris back where they belonged. “Do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Tell Zahrah to go ahead and close the register. I’ve got to start shutting this place down or we’ll never get out of here.”
Dina grinned. “Sure. But first tell me how it went with your new mentee.”
My visit with Esther seemed to have happened in a different lifetime. “It went fine. Can we talk about it later?”
“Sure. Meet me and Mark at Mama G’s for dinner.” Her voice rose to a teasing lilt. “You can bring your new boyfriend.”
“He’s not my—”
“That’s not what he told Mama G!”
“Dina. It’s not real. We’re fake dating. It’s all part of his plan to save West Harbor from sinking into a demonic rift.”
“Ooo-ooh, now there are demons?” She laughed with delight. “That’s great. But come on. Look at him. Something should happen between you two. And I think he and Mark will really get along. They have a lot in common.”
I looked from Derrick—now openly glaring at the two women who’d been staring at him—to Dina and then back again.
“Because they both wear motorcycle jackets?” What else did dark-haired, Italian restaurateur Mark have in common with my blond, fake witch boyfriend Derrick?
“No!” Dina laughed some more. “Because they’re both mama’s boys.”
I was confused. “What do you mean?”
But before I had a chance to find out, the bell over the shop door tinkled. I glanced over to see that Derrick was holding open the door with one hand, while sweeping his other out toward the darkness that had fallen over the Post Road, giving his two fans a courtly bow.
“Sorry, ladies,” he said, in response to their surprised glances. “It’s seven o’clock. Closing time. Please, allow me.”
The women, blushing and tittering, left the shop. Once they were gone, Derrick closed the door, locking it behind them, then flipped the Come In! We’re Open sign to the side that said Sorry! We’re Closed.
“Finally,” he said with satisfaction, locking the dead bolt. “I thought they’d never leave.”
Becca and Zahrah, behind the cash register, burst into giggles, but I gave Derrick a disapproving look.
“What?” he demanded, noticing my glare. “Those two were never going to buy anything anyway.”
“He’s right,” Zahrah said. “They were only window-shopping.”
“And not for anything we actually sell,” Becca added, and then she and Zahrah collapsed into snorts of laughter.
I was giving them a disapproving look when—thump! Something struck the front display window.
Expecting to see a dazed bird—they sometimes flew into the windowpane during migration season—I was startled when instead I saw that a curvy purple-haired Latina girl had suddenly thrown herself against it. There was a small, frantic-looking dog clutched in her arms.
“Wolf!” we could all hear her crying frantically through the glass. “There’s a wolf!”
Zahrah and Becca stopped laughing, and Dina, flinging her hands to her cheeks, cried, “Mark’s wolf! Oh my God! It’s real.”
It made no sense. How could there be a wolf in West Harbor? Especially downtown West Harbor, where people were still hurrying along the sidewalk in order to make it to the Country Gourmet to pick up their prepared food for dinner before it closed.
Still, Derrick and I reacted at the same time, and so similarly that we almost collided into one another:
We both ran for the door.
“What are you doing?” I cried as Derrick’s hard fingers sank into my soft shoulders.
“Stay. Here.” Then he pushed me behind him before throwing back the dead bolt and opening the door.
“Sweetheart?” he said to the girl in a voice I’d never heard him use before, it was so gentle. “Come here.”
It’s weird how our brains respond in moments of peril. Mine registered the softness of his voice and thought, That must be how he talked to the animals on the farm. No wonder his dad wouldn’t let him go to school. He needed him.
The gentleness of his voice seemed to work. Before I knew it, the teenager was inside the shop, panting breathlessly and squeezing her little dog nearly to death as her gaze scanned the night-darkened sidewalk outside. I saw no signs of a wolf—or anything else, except a normal chilly night in October, with normal West Harbor residents hurrying to get home to their loved ones.
But there was no denying the terror in her gaze.
“Wait!” she cried, as Derrick threw the door closed behind her and prepared to lock it. “My friend! She’s still out there, in the parking lot, around the back!”
Derrick looked at me, his silver eyes so bright they might as well have been stars. “Lock the door behind me,” he said to me, then plunged out into the darkness.
What was going on? Wolf attacks didn’t happen in West Harbor—at least, none that I’d ever heard of.
Except that here I was, locking my shop door against one.
“Holy shit,” Dina cried, rushing forward with Becca and Zahrah to surround the terrified girl. “Are you all right, honey?”
“Did the wolf bite you?” Becca asked. “What about your puppy?”
“Do you want some water?” Zahrah wanted to know. “What’s your name? Can we call your parents?”
The girl, overwhelmed, could only gaze out the glass door after Derrick. “No. I think I’m okay. My name is Gabby.”
I gasped as I turned around after throwing the dead bolt into place. “Gabby? Are you Esther’s friend?”
She nodded, gazing up at me with mascara-smeared, tear-filled eyes. “Yes, Gabriella Aquino. We were just out walking Willa—that’s my dog—after the Harvest Princess meeting, and I was saying how lucky Estie is to have you for a mentor. I love this shop. I would give anything to work here. So we decided to walk by. Not to spy on you, or anything,” she added, hastily. “I would never do such a thing. But I wanted to see if you’d discounted anything even more since the Fall into Fall sale. I got these shoes here.” She pointed to the purple clogs she was wearing. “But just as we were cutting through the parking lot out back, this wolf—at least, I think it was a wolf—appeared out of nowhere, and—”
She broke off, shuddering, which was just as well because it was at that point that I saw Pye slink into view. He’d realized there was a dog in the shop—wolf or domestic pet, it didn’t matter, Pye hated all dogs equally—and had leaped silently up onto the sales counter, his tail puffed.
“It’s okay,” I said soothingly, slipping an arm around the girl and turning her so that her back was to Pye. The dog, unfortunately, now had a perfect view of the cat, and began to whimper—and rightfully so. Pye was harmless—unless you were a mouse, chipmunk, or small lap dog. “My friend Derrick will find Esther and bring her here, good as new.”
“Really? Do you think so?” Gabby sniffled. “I’m so worried. I shouldn’t have left her out there, but I was just so worried for Wil—”
Bang. We all jumped as a fist struck the glass door. It was Derrick, standing beside a smiling Esther. “Heeeyyyy!” she called, waggling her gloved fingers at Gabby. She was dressed in the same clothes she’d been wearing when I’d seen her at school, including her backpack—which meant that, unless she’d found and removed it, she still had my protective amethyst with her.
“Look,” I said to Gabby, relief flooding over me as I hurried to unlock the door. “There they are, just like I told you.”
Weirdly, it wasn’t only Esther I was happy to see. Obviously I was glad to see Esther. She was my mentee, and even more than that, she was a sixteen-year-old girl. Who wouldn’t be relieved at seeing a sixteen-year-old girl alive and well and unharmed by some random escaped wolf in Connecticut?
But I was glad to see Derrick, too, a man I’d known only for a few days—and whose presence in my life had turned it completely upside down.
What was up with that?
“Gabs,” Esther cried as soon as she got into the shop. “You completely missed it!”
“Missed it?” Gabby, exasperated, put her dog down on the floor just in time—Pye had been about to take a swipe at him from the sales counter. “It was a wolf. A wolf, Estie. Where even were you? I was scared to death for you!”
“Yeah, I know. Sorry.” The two girls hugged tightly—a pleasing sight to see, at least to me, since Esther was so tall and thin, and Gabby so small and round, and yet they seemed to fit so perfectly together somehow. “But it was so cool. This guy here chased it up onto the railroad tracks. It disappeared into the bushes.”
“Wait.” Dina was leaning against the sales counter, one hand curled around Pye to keep him from launching himself at Willa. “There really was a wolf?”
“Hard to say.” Derrick wasn’t meeting anyone’s gaze. “It’s pretty dark out.”
“It was a wolf,” Esther said firmly. “A great big gray wolf.”
“It was following us,” Gabby said. “It followed us all the way from the Harvest Princess meeting at the Yacht Club down the jogging trail to the back of Enchantments. I think it was after Willa.”
“I did a report on wolves once in the sixth grade,” Esther said, “and while deer are their preferred source of food, they’ll prey on small mammals, as well.”
Gabby squealed and buried her head in the much taller Esther’s neck.
“Well, it’s gone now,” Derrick said in a voice that was unusually cheerful. “Everyone is safe.”
“Yeah,” Esther said, and gave Gabby one last squeeze before letting her go. “We’re good now, right?”
Gabby nodded uncertainly. “I guess so.”
Derrick gave me a penetrating look. He seemed to think telepathy was one of my gifts.
And if I could have read his mind, it would have been great because I would have been more prepared for what he said next, which was, “But I think to be on the safe side, Jessica and I should take you girls home.”
Wait. What?
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Esther said, at the same time that her best friend beamed and said, “Oh, thanks. That would be great.”
Apparently being chosen meant I was also part of a rideshare service for the Bringer of Light.
Which was fine, except that because Gabby was in the car with us, we couldn’t actually use the time to discuss the real reason I’d contacted Esther earlier that day—or why it was that wolves had begun appearing in downtown West Harbor lately.
Instead, I found myself in the front seat of Derrick’s rental car, an indignant Pye in a cardboard box on my lap, listening to Esther—in the back seat with Gabby—explain why they’d been at a meeting for Harvest Princess volunteers in the first place.
“I only went along to support Gabby,” she said. “She really needs the extracurriculars for her college apps. She doesn’t have any, except band. And also because the meetings are at the Yacht Club, and they give out those cookies—”
“Oh my God, yeah.” Gabby sounded wistful. “Those chocolate chip cookies are the best.”
“Right?” Esther opened her backpack. “Do you guys want one? I stole, like, twenty of them.”
“No, thank you.” I really wanted one of the cookies, but one glance at Derrick’s stern profile told me that I needed to keep the conversation on track. “So you don’t want to be a Harvest Princess, Esther?”
“No.” Esther leaned back, munching. I respected how her devotion to veganism was dependent on the level of chocolate in the available snacks. “I don’t care about princesses. Gabby’s the one who looooooves them—”
“I do not!” Gabby cried, faux-outraged. “I mean, okay, I do. But actually, the Harvest Princess thing is pretty cool. If you get picked—”
“Big if,” Esther interrupted.
“Yes, okay, if. But if you get picked, you get free tickets to the ball and the pre-ball banquet at the Yacht Club. And you get scholarship money to college and stuff. The only problem is, more girls signed up than there are places available. There are twelve of us and Mrs. Hopkins says they only have room for nine girls—”
“And one of the girls who signed up happens to be Mrs. Hopkins’s daughter,” Esther interrupted again.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean Lizzie’s going to get selected,” Gabby said defensively. “There are a lot of conditions. Like I know for a fact at least one of the girls isn’t going to make the cut based on her GPA alone. And if you count having to be comfortable conversing with strangers and being free all weekend so you can go to all the Tricentennial events in the town square, that eliminates at least one of the others because she works at Dairy Queen and doesn’t have anyone yet to cover her shift.”
“Right. But Lizzie Walker-Hopkins’s mother is running the whole thing, so she’s more than likely going to get picked—”
“Not the whole thing. There’s someone else. He’s coming on Wednesday from New York City for the final judging.”
“That’s my problem with it.” Esther leaned forward so that she could speak to Derrick and me more intimately, even though Derrick was taking care not to contribute to the conversation at all. Instead he kept his gaze straight ahead as we wound our way down the night-darkened coastal road toward the girls’ homes. “I mean aside from the fact that I think with things like this, who gets selected is always based on looks—”
“Not always,” Gabby insisted.
“Okay, and I’m not saying I don’t think you’re beautiful, Gabs, you know I do. But then why do the princesses have to wear ball gowns?”
“Because it’s for the Tricentennial Ball.”
“Then why can’t they wear suits? Ms. Gold carries that whole line of evening tuxedos for women.”
I brightened at this. “Thanks,” I said. “I do. And I’d be happy to find one for you, Gabriella. But please call me Jessica.”
“Thanks, I know, I love your suits, Jessica,” Gabby said. “But I want a gown. I can’t really afford one from Enchantments, though. My mom said if I want to do this princess thing, I have to pay for it myself, and I don’t have a credit card.”
I considered this. I was certain I had the perfect gown for her.
“How about if we worked out a payment plan?” I asked. “You could pay me in installments, either with cash or by helping out in the shop.”
Gabriella let out a gasp. “Could I really? I would love that!”
“Of course. We need the help. What’s your weekend and after-school schedule like?”
“She’s free,” Esther said drily. “That’s why she signed up to be a Sacrificial Princess.”
Gabby playfully struck her friend in the arm. “Stop! You’re making me sound like a loser.”
“Sorry.” Esther didn’t sound particularly sorry, however. “It’s not that I’m against the whole thing. I just have questions I don’t feel have been adequately addressed. Like what kind of guy would take the time to come all the way to West Harbor from New York City just to crown a bunch of girls Harvest Princesses? Unless he’s got a line of cosmetics he wants you to endorse, or something, I feel like he has to be a perv.”
I did my best not to look at Derrick, who’d come all the way to West Harbor from Montana to do something extremely similar.
“He’s not a perv, Esther!” Gabby insisted while Willa, sitting in her lap, whimpered a little. She either sensed the hostility radiating from Pye, in her box on my lap, or that we were nearing her house. It was hard to tell. “Mrs. Hopkins says he’s a very important academic, published author, and historian.”
“Ugh, that’s so gross,” Esther asked. “What’s a published author doing, judging a beauty contest? When are we going to find out his name so that I can research him and make sure he doesn’t have a criminal record?”
“Oh my God.” Gabby rolled her eyes. “Here we go again.”
“You know I love you and support you no matter what, Gabs. I just worry that you’re going to get emotionally invested in this and it’s not going to turn out the way you hope.”
“Just say it: you don’t think I’m going to get picked.”
“Actually, I think you are going to get picked, and something worse is going to happen.”
“Like what? They’re going to pour pig blood on me while I’m onstage?”
“No. Like this author guy is going to turn out to be a vampire who feasts on virgins, or something.”
I threw Derrick a knowing look. Vampires? See? I wanted to scream at him. I wasn’t the only one who thought vampires might be showing up in this town eventually.
But Derrick ignored both my look and Esther’s vampire comment, saying only, “Oh, look,” in a mild tone as he slowed the car to a stop. It was the first time he’d spoken since getting into the vehicle. “We’re here.”
I glanced at the house we’d pulled up in front of. Only a few blocks over from my own, it was nearly twice as large. New construction that straddled two lots, Esther’s house had a wide wraparound porch, a four-car garage, no less than three jack-o’-lanterns grinning maniacally down at us from the front porch, each with a flickering candle inside, and a small sign at the end of the driveway that said This Home Protected by AlarmSafe. Every light in the house seemed to be on.
“Thanks for the ride,” Gabby said, brightly, her argument with Esther completely forgotten. “You can let me out here, too. I live next door, but we’re going to do our Spanish homework together.”
“Are your parents home?” Derrick asked quickly.
“Yeah.” Esther undid her seat belt. “My little brother finishes soccer practice about now, so we all eat dinner together late.”
“Good,” he said. “Go inside and tell your parents to set their home alarm. And don’t go out again until daylight.”
“Because of the wolf?” she asked, looking thrilled.
“Because Halloween is on Friday. You never know what might be out there, lurking in the dark.”
“Cool.” Esther sounded delighted. “I’ll text you about meeting up later for mentor stuff, okay, Ms. Gold?”
“Jessica,” I corrected her. “And sure, that would be great. Gabby, get my number from Esther, too, so we can set up a time for you to come in and try on a dress and figure out a work schedule.”
“Oh, my gosh, thank you so much, Ms. Gold!” Gabby gushed.
Both girls and the dog leaped from the car as Derrick said, “Good night—and be safe!”
“We will!” they cried, and raced hand in hand up the lawn to the home’s front porch.
“Spanish homework,” Derrick said, as we watched them disappear into the house. “So that’s what the kids are calling sex these days.”
I grinned. “You got that feeling, too, huh?”
“They’re like an old married couple.”
“But more attentive to one another’s feelings. What do you think about Esther? You agree she’s the One, right?”
“No.”
When I threw a startled glance in his direction, speechless with astonishment, I saw that he wasn’t even looking at me. He was concentrating on navigating the night-dark road.
“You’re the One,” he went on, his gaze still on the road. “Esther is the Bringer of Light.” I felt my shoulders, which had tensed up at his No, relax. “I’m here to support and protect you. If you think it’s her, then it’s her. But I will say”—my shoulders tensed up again—“from the moment I met her, she’s shown the same kind of calm presence I’ve seen in previous Bringers of Light I’ve encountered. She wasn’t the least bit concerned about the wolf. More delighted, really.”
I felt my shoulders relax again. Not that I needed his approval. But it was always nice to know your coworkers had your back.
“And do you think Esther’s right?” I asked. “About this guy who’s coming in to judge the Harvest Princesses possibly being a vampire?”
“No, because there’s no such thing as vampires.”
“Oh, okay. So demons exist, but not vampires?”
“Of course demons exist. I’ve seen them. I told you: they’re the tortured souls of those looking to right what they see as their unjust death. But I’ve never seen a vampire. I think they were made up by old Eastern European grannies to frighten children into eating their garlic.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay.” I’d never encountered a vampire before, either, and Goody Fletcher made no mention of them in her book. But she had plenty to say about evil spirits and demons. “So there’s no significance to the fact that Rosalie Hopkins is looking for nine Harvest Princesses, and nine is such a powerful number in the witching world?”
He raised his eyebrows as he pulled away from the Dodge home. “What are you suggesting?”
“Well, could Esther be right? Maybe not about the judge for the contest being a vampire but . . . is Rosalie up to something? Could she even—I don’t know—know about the prophecy, and be trying to find the Bringer of Light herself?”
He was shaking his head before the words were fully out of my mouth. “No. Absolutely not.”
“Why not? She’s a council member of the World Council of Witches. Why wouldn’t she have heard about it?”
“Because even if she did, her research would have led her to the same conclusion mine did: that you’re the Chosen One.”
“Yeah, research was never Rosalie’s forte in school. And I don’t think she’d like it if she found out I was chosen for anything and she wasn’t. But it wouldn’t be the worst thing if she was looking for the Bringer of Light, too, would it? We’re all on the same side.” When he didn’t say anything right away, I prodded him in the shoulder. “Aren’t we?”
“We are.” He didn’t take his gaze off the road, but I had a feeling he wasn’t really seeing it. “Of course we are. But it doesn’t matter what Rosalie wants.” That was when he finally turned to look at me, and I saw that the muscle in his jaw was leaping. “Only you and the Bringer of Light can stop what’s coming. Do you understand?”
“Yeah, about that, I’ve been meaning to ask you. How are we supposed to do that? Did you bring along any weapons we should be training to use against these demons, stakes or crossbows or anything? Because it’s getting kind of late to order some. I guess we could try Walker Hardware tomorrow, but I don’t know if they even carry—”
“All you need are yourselves.” He turned his face back toward the road, his lips pressed together, his expression grim. “Together, you and Esther are the weapons. That’s why I can’t imagine that Rosalie, even if she knew about any of this, which I doubt, would be thinking about selecting another Bringer of Light. If anyone else were to attempt it, it would end in . . .”
“What? It will end in what?”
“Exactly what we’re trying to stop.”
“Oh. Great. So the end of the world.”
“Not the world,” he said. “Just—”
“West Harbor,” I said, at the same time he said it. “I know, I know, you don’t have to keep telling me. So was there really a wolf?”
“A wolf, or a really big dog that looked just like one.”
“Damn. You know, Mark Giovanni said he saw one while he was out jogging a few weeks ago.”
Derrick threw me an incredulous look. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because there hasn’t been a wolf sighted in Connecticut in three hundred years!”
“Exactly,” he said. “And yet just in time for the Tricentennial, one makes a reappearance.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know,” he said, tightening his grip on the wheel. “But I intend to find out.”