Derrick
A True Witch acknowledges that evil exists, and does their best whenever possible to combat it.
Rule Number Seven of the Nine Rules
*World Council of Witches*
Derrick had witnessed magic in all of its many forms around the world. Nyama in West Africa. Kotodama in Japan. Seiðr in Iceland.
But he’d never witnessed anything quite like what was happening in West Harbor, a place where magic seemed to be emanating from everywhere and everyone—even from the people he least expected.
The second Jess’s friend Mark mentioned the word “muffin,” Derrick glanced back toward the high top at which Rosalie and her husband were sitting and saw what he’d failed to notice before: the basket sitting on the floor beside them . . . a basket that was the twin of the one Rosalie had dropped off at Jessica’s house.
Only the cellophane wrapping around this one had been broken open.
And on the table in front of the people sitting around Rosalie were crumpled cellophane wrappers and strings of raffia . . . the remnants of the muffins they’d consumed.
“What the hell,” he heard Jessica mutter. She’d just noticed the same thing.
“You guys.” Yasmin turned around, pen in hand, to whisper to them urgently. “You guys, which country executed the most people for practicing witchcraft, and how many people was it?”
“Germany,” Derrick said. “Forty thousand.” But the response was automatic. To Jessica, he said in a low voice, “Rosalie’s used a friendship spell.”
“Love muffins.” Jessica’s normally warm brown eyes were blazing with anger. “I can’t believe it. She’s handing out love muffins. What is she thinking?”
“That she wants people to like her.”
Jessica snorted. “She’s not a kid anymore. What kind of adult would resort to a friendship spell to get people to like them?”
One who is up to no good. But aloud, he only asked, “Has she ever done anything like this before?”
“Aside from the love spell she tried to do on Billy? Not that I know of. Baking is more Dina’s thing, really.”
Dina, meanwhile, was still trying to figure out what was going on with Mark.
“What do you mean, Rosalie gave you one of her muffins?” If Jessica’s eyes were blazing, Dina’s were twin nuclear warheads. And detonation was imminent.
“It was so good.” Mark was smiling amiably in the direction of the Veuve Clique Ohs. “How come you never make muffins that good, hon?”
“That’s it.” The legs of Dina’s stool scraped noisily against the cement floor as she pushed herself away from the table. “Where is that witch? I’ll show her what happens when you give my boyfriend a muffin—”
But when the diminutive brunette jumped off her stool to storm away in Rosalie’s direction, Derrick caught her arm.
“Hold on,” he said. “Violence is never the answer.”
“Are you serious?” Dina wrenched her arm from his grasp. Her gaze had gone from DEFCON Five to One in seconds. “Look at him. She’s going to have to pay for this. My boyfriend is high on magic.”
“He isn’t high.” Derrick steered Dina gently back into her seat. He was trying very hard to make it look as if everything was normal over at the Get In, Losers table, even though of course everything was far from normal—starting with the fact that their team name was so terrible. “It’s only a friendship spell.”
“A friendship spell?” Dina spat. “I’ll show that witch some friendship. My foot’s about to get real friendly with her—”
“I don’t know where all this hostility toward Rosalie is coming from,” Mark said, holding out his hands in a helpless gesture. “She’s never been anything but nice to us.”
Dina stared at him in horror. “What the actual f—”
“Hey.” Yasmin tapped urgently on the carafe of wine to get their attention. “How many people accused of witchcraft were burned at the stake in Salem?”
“None,” Sal said, and all eyes went to him for a change.
“What?” He shrugged his large shoulders. “It’s a trick question. I saw it on the History channel. No people accused of witchcraft in Salem were burned at the stake. They were either hanged or crushed to death beneath stones.”
“Gross,” Yasmin said, and wrote down Zero.
“Dee.” Jessica had left her own stool, and now laid a hand on her friend’s arm to keep her from physically launching herself at Rosalie. People were beginning to glance in their direction, mostly because of the agitation emanating from Dina. “You know friendship spells wear off in a few days.”
“In a few days it will be the Tricentennial Ball.” Dina slid back into her seat, but she didn’t look happy about it. “She’s trying to get everybody on her side so they’ll write extra nice reviews of her event online.”
Derrick had the feeling that Rosalie’s motives for handing out the muffins were a bit darker than a desire for positive online feedback.
“Is this kind of thing okay with whoever you work for?” Dina asked Derrick bitterly. “Slipping people happy muffins without their consent?”
“No,” he said. “It is not.”
“Well, then what are you going to do about it?”
“This,” Derrick said, and he held his right hand out to Mark. “How are you doing, Mark?”
Mark slipped his hand automatically into Derrick’s, giving him a hearty handshake. Not as hearty as the one Mark had given him when they’d met. But Mark hadn’t been strung out on Rosalie’s love muffins then. “Hey, man,” he said. “Thanks, I’m doing good. How are—”
Mark broke off with a perplexed expression. He seemed to be hearing something the rest of them couldn’t. He cocked his head, listening, while Derrick continued to gently clasp the other man’s fingers.
It wasn’t something Derrick ever learned consciously to do. It wasn’t something he’d ever even known he could do until one day, when he’d been a kid, a favorite horse had run afoul of some barbed wire, and Derrick, in a panic, had laid his hands upon the wounds.
Like magic, the horse had calmed, the pain disappearing. The wounds themselves had healed up by the time the vet arrived.
A miracle, anyone else would have called it. But his father had taken one look, shook his head, and sighed.
“Your damned mother,” he’d said to Derrick—not without affection.
Maybe Derrick had inherited the ability from her. Or maybe it had been another one of her gifts. Since she only gave him one a year—which was also the number of times per year she visited him, since other obligations kept her busy traveling all over the world—she tried to make her presents especially impressive.
True, as a boy he’d have preferred a Nintendo, particularly since, after that, it was Derrick who got called anytime an animal—or ranch hand—fell ill or was injured on the farm.
But the gift of healing is what his mother gave him, and so it was what he gave back to others . . . like now, in the restaurant, holding Mark’s hand as he waited for the foggy glaze in the other man’s eyes to lift.
“What . . .” Mark blinked a few times. Then Derrick saw the clarity return, seeping back like the tide beneath the dock. Mark hastily snatched his fingers from Derrick’s.
“Hey, bro.” His voice sounded once again like his own, his diction crisp and rapid-fire. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on?” Dina struck her boyfriend in the shoulder. Her gaze was still fiery, but now her eyes were lit with the warmth of affection and worry, not rage. “What’s going on? What’s going on is that Rosalie gave you one of her homemade happy muffins and you ate it. What the hell is the matter with you?”
Mark shook his head, his long dark hair brushing his shoulders. “What? No, that didn’t happen.”
“Yes, it did. You were going on and on about how good it was and how great she and Billy are.”
“No.” But Mark looked vaguely troubled, as if he did have some distant memory of . . . something. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I hate that stupid witch and her dopey husband. I always have.”
“That’s not what you were saying two minutes ago.” Dina pointed at Derrick. “If he hadn’t done his little magic trick with his fingers on you, you’d probably still be all, Oh, Rosalie and Billy, they’re so great, why don’t we get together with them for Sunday Gravy?”
Mark laughed—but nervously. “I literally never said that.”
“You literally did.”
Derrick felt a hand slide into his. He looked down and saw Jessica looking up at him, her face very pale under the bright lights of the brew pub.
“Thank you,” she said, in a voice so quiet he wouldn’t have heard her if his very being hadn’t become attuned, over the past few days, to her every word, her every movement, her every breath.
He squeezed her fingers in his. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You did.” Her eyes, in all the wild lights around them, looked larger and darker than ever. Her hand, so warm and alive in his, felt oddly reassuring. “Even Mark knows it, deep down. I don’t know how you did it, but you did. Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me. It’s my job.” The words were automatic, and came out sounding more gruff than he meant them to.
But that’s because he was filled with sudden emotion—emotion he couldn’t identify. All he could think was, Why is she thanking me? Doesn’t she know? Doesn’t she know how I feel about her?
But evidently she didn’t, since she began to pull her hand away, her voice going tart as the essence of bergamot.
“Oh, so you were only doing your job? Well, in that case—”
He tightened his grip on her fingers, keeping her anchored beside him.
“There might be mitigating circumstances in this case that may have caused me to go a little above and beyond my job,” he admitted.
The smile returned to her eyes—and her lips. “Mitigating circumstances? Would I qualify as one of those?”
He couldn’t help smiling back. “It could be—”
“M&M’s!” Yasmin cried, startling everyone. Her gaze was totally focused on the screens overhead. “They’re the candy that melts in your mouth and not in your hand, right?”
“Honey.” Sal shook his head at his wife as she happily scrawled her response onto the answer sheet. “Read the room.”
It was good advice. Pay less attention to the attractive woman sitting beside him, radiating sexual energy—at least, to Derrick—and more to what was going on in the room around him. That’s how he happened to notice that Rosalie had left her table. A quick scan of the restaurant showed him that she was over by the entrance to the video arcade, talking to a boy who could only be her son. He was the spitting image of Billy, only much younger, shorter, and dressed in skinny jeans.
“Excuse me,” Derrick said, releasing Jessica’s hand and reaching for the empty beer pitcher and wine carafe. “I have the next round.”
“Oh.” Jessica hadn’t noticed Rosalie. “You don’t have to do that. We can ask the server—”
“It’s no trouble.” Derrick made his way through the throng gathered around the bar and set both containers down. “Two more for that table over there, please,” he said to the first server who acknowledged him, and pointed back toward the Get In, Losers table. When the bartender nodded, Derrick turned toward the entrance to the video arcade.
Rosalie’s back was to him. She had her wallet open and was handing a fifty-dollar bill to her son. Derrick was close enough that he could hear her, despite the thrum of the bar and music from the games inside the video arcade.
“Now, I want you to share this with your sister,” Rosalie was saying to the boy.
“Aw, Mom,” the kid said, looking annoyed. He had his father’s dark hair, only he’d slicked it down in the front with some kind of product to make his bangs resemble those of a member of a boy band Derrick had seen on the front of a magazine at the airport. “That’s not enough!”
“Use your allowance, then.” Rosalie’s voice was crisp. “That’s what it’s for.”
The boy made a face, then spun away from his mother in irritation. Derrick reflected that if he’d ever responded to either of his parents in such a manner, he’d never have seen an allowance again, but Rosalie seemed unfazed. She closed her wallet and turned around to head back to her table . . .
But instead she walked straight into Derrick, who was standing behind her, his arms folded across his chest.
“Hello,” he said with a smile. “I think it’s time we have a chat, don’t you?”
Rosalie paled visibly under the bright lights of the flat screens above their heads. But he didn’t miss the way her gaze dropped down to the amulet at his neck.
“Oh, I . . . uh . . .” She glanced toward her table, but neither her husband nor any of the Veuve Clique Ohs were looking in her direction. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you mean. I really should get back to—”
“Oh, you know exactly what I mean. That’s why you came over this morning with your magic muffins—and why you’re passing them out here, as well. Billy may have gone home yesterday and told you Jessica got a new boyfriend, but when you met me this morning, you suspected there was something more going on, didn’t you?”
Her blue-eyed gaze was darting all over the place. She really wasn’t very good at this. “I don’t—I really don’t—”
“Oh, I think you do. In fact, after that stunt you just pulled, I think I deserve five minutes of your time.” Derrick motioned toward the exit. “Shall we go outside to discuss this? Or do you want to do it in front of your husband who, from what I gather, isn’t aware of your . . . extracurricular activities?”
Her gaze flew toward Billy, who was laughing with one of her friends. Then, before Derrick could say another word, Rosalie spun on one of her high heels and marched toward the nearest door, which happened to let out onto the pier. He followed, reflecting that everyone had their secrets . . . but the one Rosalie was keeping from her spouse had to be one of the biggest.
The burst of wind that hit him the moment he stepped outside was so strong, it snapped the door shut behind him. It was cold, too, but not as cold as the spray of salt water that crashed against the side of the decking where they were standing. It had been noisy inside—a rude onslaught of music and seemingly endless chatter from both the television screens and the patrons—but the moment the wind knocked the door shut, all of that ended.
Now there was a different kind of noise: the howl of the wind and the splashing of water surging around the pylons beneath them, the hard rhythmic slap of the waves hitting the seawall beyond. The moon was still busy playing hide-and-seek with the dark storm clouds overhead that were being sent skidding fast across the sky by the wind.
The foul weather wasn’t courtesy of Rosalie’s gift, however. He knew even the most powerful storm witch couldn’t whip up a gale this fast.
That didn’t mean that Rosalie was happy, though.
“This is harassment,” she protested, hugging her arms to her chest as the wind buffeted her blond hair around her face. “I don’t even know who you are.”
“Don’t you?” Derrick lifted an eyebrow. “We were introduced this morning.”
“Who you really are.” She pointed at the amulet he wore around his neck. “Where did you get that? And why does Jessica have one? I reported you, you know, for stolen—”
“I didn’t steal anything,” he said. “And speaking of reporting, does your precious World Council of Witches know that you’re handing out magic muffins to members of the general public?”
In the fluorescent safety lighting the Dodges had installed along the pier outside their restaurant, he saw her make a face that was remarkably similar to the one her son had made when she’d told him he had to share the fifty-dollar bill with his sister.
“I didn’t do anything wrong.” The wind and sea were churning so wildly, her voice was barely audible.
“Didn’t you?”
“No!” Rosalie shoved loose strands of hair from her mouth, where they were sticking to her lip gloss. “Rule number three: ‘A true Witch does not seek power through the suffering of others.’ Friendship spells don’t cause suffering. People enjoy my muffins.”
“I think that might be an overly generous interpretation of the rule.”
Rosalie didn’t like hearing this. Her glossy lips twisted. “I don’t know why you think I have to stand here and listen to anything you say. I called the World Council of Witches, and you’re not a member. No one there has ever heard of you. No one. Not even Bartholomew Brewster himself.”
Derrick’s grin broadened. “So the old Grand Sorcerer said he didn’t know me, did he? Well, isn’t that a kick in the pants.”
Rosalie was so focused on her own indignation, she wasn’t paying attention to Derrick’s smile. “And he said I should warn Jessica that you’re not a Council member, and that you never have been!”
That made his smile disappear. “She already knows.”
This set her blinking, and not just at the salt spray the wind was still kicking up at them. “She . . . she does?”
“Of course she does. Do you think this is a game? The fate of this town rests on what happens Thursday night. I think you know that. I think you’re well aware of it, as a matter of fact. And what are you doing to help, except going around, phoning Bart Brewster to complain, and giving out magic muffins?”
“How—” She looked stunned. “How do you know about Thursday? Unless . . . unless you’re here to stop it!”
“Trying to stop whatever it is you’re doing? Absolutely. You don’t seem to have the slightest idea what it is you’re playing at here, Rosalie. If the witching community doesn’t work together to try to stop this rift, people are going to die, or at least get hurt—like Jessica Gold got hurt yesterday, when you chose to nearly kill her”—Rosalie sucked in her breath to object, but Derrick continued relentlessly—“and destroyed her car. Honestly, how did you think that was going to help? Now, you may not like that I’m here, but you have to admit that it’s a good thing I am. Because otherwise, you would still be worrying about how people feel about the party you’re throwing for your town instead of focusing on what’s actually important right now: keeping that town from being destroyed by a very real, very deadly threat.”
Now Rosalie didn’t look stunned. She looked frightened.
He wasn’t sure it was because of what he’d said, however. The waves around them were growing stronger. They were beginning to breach the concrete seawall at the end of the pier, near the front of the restaurant. Some diners trying to enter the place got splashed, and screamed in both delight and terror.
Rosalie, seeing this, blinked rapidly.
“I—I am focusing on keeping this town from being destroyed,” she stammered. “That’s why I’m the board chair of the West Harbor Tricentennial Committee. I want to bring people together to celebrate our history and heritage. And I had nothing to do with what happened to Jess. That was—that was—”
“Sure. Whatever you say. Look, here’s what’s going to happen,” he said, very calmly—more calmly than he felt. “You’re going to take the rest of those muffins home tonight and destroy them, and any other baked goods you might have that could, in any way, alter anyone’s feelings about you. Is that understood?”
Rosalie didn’t nod. Her face—her entire being—seemed frozen, but whether with cold, fear, or anger, it was impossible to say.
“And then,” he went on, “for the rest of this week, and every week after this for the rest of time, if West Harbor continues to exist, you’re going to do everything you can to make Jessica Gold’s life easier, not harder. Do I make myself clear?”
“Who are you?” Rosalie asked, looking not at him but at a rogue wave to one side of the pier that was so enormous, it managed to surge over the seawall and into the restaurant’s parking lot, deluging the cars there. Her eyes flashed wide in the safety lighting. “How are you doing this?”
“I’m not doing anything,” he said in a tired voice. “Except standing here trying to talk to you like we’re two good witches. Because that’s what we are, right?”
Another wave, this one even bigger than the last, heaved relentlessly toward the shore, seeming to head straight for them. The wind’s howl grew louder, as did the thrum of the sea.
“Now,” Derrick said. “Are you going to leave Jessica—”
“Yes!” Rosalie threw her hands over her face to protect it from the onslaught of ice water she was expecting. “I’ll leave her alone! I swear!”
But instead of breaking over the pier railing, the wave suddenly collapsed, dipping down beneath the planks upon which they were standing, and causing only their feet to get sprayed.
“And?” Derrick asked.
“And make her life easier,” Rosalie said. The words seemed to have been wrung out of her. “From now on.”
“Perfect.” Derrick drew his cell phone from his pocket to check the time. “Oh, look. It’s late. We’d better get back inside.”
“Please.” Rosalie’s voice was weak. “Please tell me. Who are you?”
He blinked at her. “You already know. I’m Derrick Winters.”
He left Rosalie staring after him, her eyes burning with resentment—and maybe a little bit of fear.
Back inside, a new pitcher of beer and carafe of wine had been delivered to the Get In, Losers table, as well as two cheeseburgers. Jessica was digging into hers, and looked up reproachfully when he appeared.
“Where have you been?” she asked. “Your food’s getting cold.”
“Sorry,” he said, and slid onto his stool. “Had to make a quick call. This looks delicious.”
He realized he was starving. The food smelled especially good after the small victory he’d scored.
“Here,” Jessica said. He could barely hear her over the din from the baseball and hockey games, the music, and the other customers. “Have some ketchup. Or are you a mayo and fries kind of person?”
“Both. Thanks.”
She grinned a little wickedly at him. “Both, huh? I like that in a man.”
He grinned back at her.
Mark and Dina had stopped arguing. They now had their arms around each other and were murmuring lovingly to one another.
“You guys.” Yasmin whipped around on her stool. “You guys, look. Dr. Steve has finished tabulating the results.”
And then she and Dina both let out ear-piercing screams. Because there, on the flat screen above their heads—and all the other flat screens in the restaurant that weren’t showing sports—was the trivia team with the most points that evening: Get In, Losers.
“We won!” Dina and Yasmin leaned across Sal to hug one another, while he protectively snatched his beer out of their way.
“Yay,” Jessica said, raising her glass. “Finally! To the Losers!”
“To the Losers!”
Everyone at the table raised their glasses in a joyful toast as Derrick noted Rosalie hurrying back into the restaurant from outside. The salt spray had nearly flattened her hair to her head. She had to have been cold and uncomfortable. But no one would have been able to tell from the way she was smiling and chatting with her friends and husband, looking everywhere but in Derrick’s direction.
He and Jessica and her friends were picking out their West Harbor Brewport T-shirts and accepting the congratulations of Dr. Steve when Esther’s father walked over and asked if he could borrow the trivia master’s microphone. When Dr. Steve told him of course, the restaurant owner’s voice came booming over the sound system.
“Sorry to interrupt the fun, folks,” he said. “But anyone with a car parked near the seawall might want to think about moving it. The tide’s acting up again, and the weather service just issued another coastal flood warning.”
A number of patrons stood up and reached for their coats, and even more groaned, but Esther’s father put out a hand to calm them.
“Come on, it’s not that bad. There’s plenty of room in the back parking lot. Sorry again for the interruption, and thanks, as always, for dining at the Brewport!”
“Well,” Sal said. “That’s us. I’ll go round up the kids. It’s past their bedtime anyway.”
“Yeah, we’d better leave, too,” Dina said, sliding an arm around Mark’s waist. “I have to go bone this one’s brains out.”
“Ew, Dina.” Jessica winced.
“Why?” Dina asked, a bright glint in her eyes. “It’s not like you two are going to go home and do anything different.”
“On that note,” Jessica said. “Good night, Losers.”
They were strolling arm in arm toward the door when Derrick’s gaze fell upon Rosalie. She was gathering up her family, too. The son was resisting, whining that he still had money left on his game card, but the daughter was coming along willingly enough. Billy was waving farewell to the other Veuve Clique Ohs like he didn’t have a care in the world. Rosalie was giving a very good imitation of the same . . . until her gaze happened to fall upon Derrick. Then she looked quickly away.
But he didn’t miss how the smile on her face went from looking genuine to fixed, like a mannequin’s.
He wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.
“What’s up with Rosalie?” Jessica asked him. “I’ve never seen her smile so fake. Do you think she knows we’re on to her about the muffins?”
“Oh,” Derrick said, taking her hand. “I think she knows.”
“Is that why the weather’s turned? Is she trying to punish us?”
“No,” Derrick said. “This weather is courtesy of someone else.”
“Who?”
He smiled and squeezed her hand. “Mother Nature.”