Chapter Twelve

The latest video was addressed to Henner.

Well, it was actually addressed to ‘the jerk who keeps trying to censor me’, but it was close enough.

I didn’t want to open it. Just the thought of clicking on that little icon made my stomach turn to knots and my breath squeeze down in my throat. If Henner had sent us a red alert, that meant it was going to be bad, that much was obvious. The last time we’d had a ‘code red’ had been when Janara’s army had been marching down Main Street.

It ended up that I didn’t have to open it though, because Wanda snatched up her own phone and immediately hit play.

Like her other videos, Kenzie was perfectly framed in the middle of the shot. Her back was to a wall that looked vaguely industrial—something made from big, gray cinderblocks instead of the usual red bricks. It was hard to tell exactly where she was, with no signs or any other indications. The lighting also wasn’t good, and didn’t give much away. From the looks of it, the sun had set a while ago.

I didn’t like the look on her face. In spite of the title of the video, Kenzie didn’t look frustrated or angry. She looked smug. There was a nasty little smirk at the corner of her mouth, like she’d gotten something over on an adversary.

When she held up the little glass bottle, which happened to be a very familiar purple vial, I almost threw up.

“Okay, this has been cute, or whatever, but I’m over it,” she said as she stepped closer to the camera.

Gone were the sweet, overly excited tones that Kenzie usually used on her followers. So, that probably meant this wasn’t a video meant for her audience, so much. Instead, I had a feeling it was meant for an audience of only one. Kenzie had taken off her performer’s mask, and she wasn’t trying to be nice about it.

“See, I’ve been talking to people.” Kenzie smiled in the video, and she flashed enough of her teeth to make a vampire proud. It wasn’t a friendly look, by any stretch. “And all the conversations, and the wild stories, well… they all led back to one girl. And this girl told me she had a potion that could make people remember things. Sounds crazy, right? Well, she was nice enough to let me try it out.”

I wrapped my arms around my stomach, feeling beyond ill. Niamh’s granddaughter, Jenny. That must have been who Kenzie was talking about—who else could it have been? She was the only other person, aside from Niamh and myself who even knew about the potion in the first place. Yes, this was on Jenny. She must have given the vial to Kenzie, in the hopes of trying to root out Haven Hollow’s secrets. And why wouldn’t she? Owing to all her scoffing and eyerolling, I was pretty sure Jenny hadn’t believed the potion was actually a potion, in spite of everything Niamh had told her. She probably thought it was just aromatherapy or something.

And now, Kenzie had my potion. Son of a…What was she going to do with it?

The only saving grace was that the bottle looked more than half empty. It must have really made the rounds at the high school. Kenzie shook her hair back, her lips screwed up into a mean little smirk.

“I’m done with the censorship. So, here’s the deal. Someone is going to do an interview with me, and they’re going to do it on camera. What’s more—they’re going to tell me the truth about this whole stupid town, and what’s going on here. In other words, they’re going to spill the beans. Or… we can do this the hard way.”

She panned her camera to the side, away from herself for the first time, and a sign came into view.

Haven Hollow Water Purification Plant.

“The little bitch,” Wanda seethed.

I couldn’t even make a sound, I was so terrified.

“The hard way, in case you haven’t put it together,” Kenzie continues, “is that I dump what’s left of this bottle into the water main. That way the whole town will wake up, and finally see what’s going on under their noses and has been.”

My nails dug into the table. There was a roaring in my ears, and it made the voice coming from the video sound tinny and far away. She couldn’t. She couldn’t do that! The Hollow would be in shambles. It wouldn’t be safe here any longer. And there was no way Wanda and her coven members would be able to be all over the town at once. No, this was much, much bigger than the coven or the Council.

“Spell,” Wanda swore. “ Hellfire . That crazy little wench is going to ruin everything we’ve built here.”

Kenzie panned back to herself, where she was standing in front of that gray, industrial wall. It was suddenly a lot more sinister, now that I knew where she was.

“I suggest you all try being reasonable. What’s one interview? Besides, the truth is going to come out one way or another. Maybe I can give you a better spin on things, if you talk to me.” She smiled into the camera then, sharp and vicious as a knife blade. “Tick Tock. I’m waiting.”

The video cut out.

I sat there, so panicked I felt like I was floating outside my body. My face was numb. I couldn’t feel my feet. This was a nightmare.

Wanda was up on her feet in an instant, pacing the length of the room. Her magic crackled around her, stirring her hair on a source-less wind. The air smelled like ozone and faintly of blood.

“That absolute bitch,” Wanda growled as she paced. “Who the spell does she think she is, storming in here and demanding anything? I’m going to hex her bald, and then I’m going to start getting nasty.”

“Wanda.” My voice came out an airless croak. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath, and my heart was pounding inside my skull loud enough that I could hear the rush of blood in my ears. “She… she could do it. If she exposes Haven Hollow to the country, to the world , what would we even do? If Haven Hollow falls, how much longer do you think the other Hollows will last? Especially if people go looking for them?”

Wanda spun around to scowl at me. That was fine, I was used to Wanda with some kind of unpleasant expression on her face. But what did have me ready to throw up on the floor, was that under the anger, there was fear. And that was alarming because Wanda Depraysie did not get scared. She’d faced down demons and vampires and her own insane mother with a quip and a toss of her hair. To see her worried, to see her shaken, it really drove home just how bad this all could go.

She swallowed, and it was quiet enough in the room that I could hear the bob of her throat as it moved. Then she stepped forward to pick up her phone.

“We need to get the Council together, pronto.”

I gave a jerky nod and started dialing my phone with shaking fingers.

###

Luckily, when Lorcan swung by to pick up Wanda, he was able to give me a ride too, because there was no way I was in any shape to get behind a wheel. There was a wash of cold running through my body, tingling along my hands and feet. It tasted like panic and it had me wanting to either tell Lorcan to floor it for goodness’s sake, or I was going to get out at the next red light and run the rest of the way.

I didn’t do either of those things. Partially because one was rude and the other ridiculous. No matter how keyed up I was, there was no chance of me outrunning a car. And I didn’t want to tick off the vampire who was nice enough to give me a ride in the first place, especially when Wanda was so on edge in the passenger’s seat. She was one wrong word away from launching a nasty hex someone’s way.

With nothing better to do but fidget, I pulled out my phone. There weren’t any new messages in the group chat. Everyone was too busy converging on the water plant to bother posting anything, and Kenzie seemed to be suspiciously quiet. She wasn’t even trying to email herself videos any longer, which meant Henner could finally take a welcome breather. Well, until Haven Hollow imploded on itself.

We’d swung by the Tayir house just long enough for Henner to pass us a couple things, and to tell us with a strained expression that there hadn’t been any activity. Was that good or bad? Were things quiet because Kenzie was playing nice and keeping her word to wait for her interview? Or was she quiet because she’d already managed to send something out? Or, worst of all, she’d already poured the remaining Memento Mori into the water main, and was just sitting back to watch the fallout.

There wasn’t all that much potion left, and diluted in the water, it would lose a lot of its power. But that wild magic surge had done something to it, something big, and I had no idea what that might mean. It could have been that nothing much would happen. People would catch a whiff of rich wood and lavender and maybe a few childhood memories might be a little brighter.

Or everyone might remember everything, plunging all of Haven Hollow, and maybe even the entire supernatural population, into utter chaos. I bent forward over my own knees and tried to force some air into my wheezing lungs.

“Hey, hey,” Wanda snapped from the front seat. “Have a panic attack on your own time. We have things to do.”

She was right, unfortunately. And the glance she shot me in the rearview was almost sympathy adjacent, so that was nice.

My phone buzzed, and my heart just about stopped in my chest before I saw that it was just Andre confirming that he and Finn were safe and sound. The surge of relief and affection that passed through me tightened my throat, which didn’t do anything good for my breathing. I was just so grateful that Andre had jumped in when I’d called him and filled him in on what was going on. He’d collected Finn after school and between him and Ouire, they’d kept my son distracted. There was no need for him to worry. The Council would take care of everything.

I just had to keep telling myself that. Over and over again.

The expensive leather upholstery of Lorcan’s absurd luxury car sighed as I leaned back, the buttery soft material folding around me like a hug. I had to stop thinking about what we were headed into, or I was going to drive myself crazy. Instead, I turned my head and focused on the scenery passing by. The water plant was on the outskirts of town, which meant driving almost the entire length of Haven Hollow from Hallowed Homes offices. I dug my fingers into my thighs, and let out a slow breath, trying not to think about how far away we were, and how impatient Kenzie had seemed.

We were lucky that it was late enough that there wasn’t a lot of traffic. Not that Haven Hollow was like one of those small towns were the sidewalks rolled up at six thirty, and no one set foot outside after the sun had set. We actually had a pretty vibrant night life. That probably had a lot to do with the nature of the town’s citizens more than anything.

We passed the Half-Moon Bar and Grill, which was still busy, even with Roy occupied elsewhere. For a second, the teasing sweet scent of lavender hit my nose, and then I was lost in the visceral memory of the first hamburger I’d ever had there. The rich meat, the crisp lettuce, the satisfying tang of the tomato. Saliva pooled in my mouth at the memory, and I swallowed to clear my mouth.

In all the nonsense, I’d forgotten to wash the Memento Mori off my temples, and in spite of all the trouble the potion had caused, I had to admit, it was a strong one. It didn’t help that I had so many memories of all the places we were passing.

Sweeter Haunts brought to mind the waxy sweetness of candy corn, and the first bite of fudge I’d had there. It came with the rustle of autumn leaves blowing down the street and the bite of the first frost in the air. Stomper’s Creamery reminded me of dozens of hot summer days, where ice cream was a refreshing relief. I could almost feel the vinyl booth under my legs, the softly muffled clomp of Stanely’s hooves that no one noticed through his careful glamour. Wanda’s Witchery made my fingers curl with the remembered brush of silk and satin. Of the heavy smell of ozone in the air while Wanda was soaking her fabrics in potions, or just frustrated with a difficult customer. Poppy’s Potions hit the hardest of all. Just a glance at my shop had me almost overwhelmed with memories, the scent of roses and citrus, wood polish, twinkling fairy lights and the feeling of smooth glass under my fingers. I remembered the first time I’d stepped foot into the building, how it looked with all the empty shelves. I remembered the way Finn’s face had lit up when I’d showed him. The night Ouire had come scratching at my door like a lost pet. The first time Andre had come through the door and something in my heart had eased, and the feeling of ah, there you are settled into my bones. Like part of me had been waiting all my life for that moment.

My heart twinged at the memory. Things were so up in the air between us at the moment, but I really needed to sit down and talk to Andre. I needed to know why he hadn’t brought up his job offer, why he hadn’t told me he was most likely leaving, why he hadn’t mentioned anything at all. Especially after…

The remembered brush of his hand ghosted up the curve of my spine. Warm breath brushed my ear, and blood slammed into my face so hard I was surprised I didn’t pass out, right there in the back of Lorcan’s car. My goodness, I so didn’t want to be having those kinds of thoughts while in a car with my BFF, while we were driving to deal with a blackmailing vlogger.

My mortification reached a new peak when, in the rearview mirror, I saw Lorcan’s nostrils twitch, and he glanced at me, his face concerned.

“All right back there, Poppy?”

I managed a strangled, “yep,” while my blush reached new, volcanic levels. They would have been able to fry an egg right there on my cheek. It was a good thing that Wanda’s sense of shame had atrophied somewhere in the late eighteen hundreds, because a partner who could smell the blood in my flushed face would have caused a terrible feedback loop of embarrassment that left me permanently scarlet.

The streetlights faded the further we got from downtown, and slowly shadows closed in on the car as we drove into the woods that surrounded Haven Hollow. The tree branches rose overhead, blocking the moon and stars, until the world narrowed down to the golden path of the car headlights ahead.

My stomach twisted in knots, and I clutched the strap of the seatbelt where it lay across my hips, like it was all that would keep me from vanishing into the night. I didn’t know what we were headed into, and while we had something of a plan, I had absolutely no idea how we were going to pull it off without Kenzie just tossing the potion into the water, marking the decline and fall of Haven Hollow.

“Give me one good reason not to turn her into any manner of horrible creature,” Wanda said, her arms folded across her chest in the front seat. “That would solve so many of our problems. We could dump her in a nice bog somewhere, and that would be the end of it.”

“Well,” Lorcan said, in the voice of a man who was used to talking down an irritated witch. “My understanding is that she has a lot of fans who watch her videos, dearest. Someone would notice she had disappeared, and they might even come looking for her. You can’t turn them all into lizards, toads or fish, can you?”

“Why not?” Wanda turned her head to scowl at her own reflection in the glass. “It’s a pretty big bog.”

The two of them bickered back and forth, but it felt like my ears were full of static, so I focused on breathing steadily and not throwing up. We had to do something. Finn and I had built a life here, and we couldn’t let someone ruin it all, especially not for some internet popularity contest. I just wished I knew what it was we needed to do. We’d tricked Kenzie last time, made her feel silly. Hmm, maybe that hadn’t been the best choice, in retrospect. She’d taken the affront personally. That was what was different this time. Her actions now felt spiteful, not like business as usual. We couldn’t afford to keep poking that particular hornet’s nest.

One thing we’d all agreed on was that we couldn’t descend en mass into the plant parking lot. Kenzie might have been as bold as brass when she was alone, but she didn’t strike me as a complete idiot. If she saw the entire Council come peeling into the parking lot, she was going to assume the worst, and maybe do something drastic. Like pour the remaining potion into the water.

So, before we reached the treatment plant, Lorcan slowed and pulled over onto the side of the road, just around the bend from the building. It meant we didn’t have to hike through the woods, but it blocked anyone’s line of sight and made it so we might actually have a chance of sneaking up on her.

There was a big black truck waiting for us there, the lights off, and the engine still ticking as it cooled when I fumbled off my seatbelt to get out of Lorcan’s car. Roy’s truck. Fifi’s hair was pale as moonlight in the dark of the woods. She looked glowing and ethereal, especially with Roy looming over her like a seven-foot-tall shadow.

I glanced around, looking for the others, and then swallowed hard when I realized this was it. With Taliyah and Maverick out of town, the five of us were all that was left of the Haven Hollow Council. The night felt very big, the trees looming around us. Well, there was one more of us, Fifi’s brother, but apparently he was out of town too. Hmm.

I fiddled with the little device Henner had given me and slipped it into my pocket where I couldn’t lose or drop it. Then I stepped forward to join Wanda and Lorcan as they approached the others.

“I still say my plan to turn her into a bog-dwelling creature was the best one.”

Roy snorted. His arms were crossed over his broad chest, the heavy muscles in his biceps bunching. “You would.”

“I don’t know, I think the idea is rather novel and charming.” Lorcan smiled, wide enough that he flashed some fang. “Think of what it could do for the local ecology. We turn nosy interlopers into amphibians, and the next thing you know, they’re off the endangered species list, in more ways than one.”

I tried not to sigh, but it figured that Lorcan would spin on a dime and go from reasonable and talking Wanda down, to full blown enabler, just so he could contradict Roy—probably his favorite pastime. Roy’s heavy brow lowered, and he opened his mouth to bite back, but Fifi put a gentle hand on his arm, and he reconsidered.

“We know what we have to do,” she said quietly. “We don’t have time to argue. Stick to the plan. The only question is, who’s going in to meet her?”

And then my witchy BFF, my coven leader, my drinking buddy, opened her mouth and committed the greatest betrayal I’d ever been dealt.

“Poppy should go.”

“What?” the word came out of me in a horrible squeak, like someone was letting a balloon slowly deflate. I turned to face her with a shocked expression. “Why me?”

I wouldn’t know what to say, how to make things better. I hadn’t even grabbed any good potions before we’d come flying over here. My options were limited anyway, since I was pretty sure a banishment potion wouldn’t work on Kenzie. Fiery Command Oil might have convinced her to hand over the potion and leave town, but it wouldn’t solve the root problem. Kenzie would just come back, twice as spiteful.

Wanda turned, the heels of her boots crunching lightly against the gravel shoulder of the road. “Because you’re the only one who looks like a mom.”

I was sure that made sense in some context, but I was too anxious to put it together. Waves of cold anxiety kept washing over me, making my skin clammy and cold. I wrapped my arms around myself to try and keep some heat in. “What?”

Wanda gestured at the rest of the group. “Look at us. You’re the least physically intimidating person here. If you go in, Kenzie will probably underestimate you. If we send Lorcan or Roy, she’ll probably run, and we don’t need that. Even Fifi and I look like we’re ready to kick her ass, because, shockingly, we are. Plus, if I go in, I’m enacting ‘operation amphibian’, so consider that.” She took a couple steps forward and rested her hands on my shoulders. Then she leaned down, close enough to make eye contact, even in the darkness. “Also, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, Poppy—you’re wearing a cardigan. No one can be intimidating in a cardigan. It’s one of the fundamental laws of fashion everywhere.”

She hadn’t said it like an insult, but somehow it still felt like one. I wrapped the offending pink cardigan around myself more tightly, clutching at the edges like a security blanket. “Okay, but don’t we… well, don’t we want her to be scared?”

“Scared people do stupid things,” Roy said quietly. He lowered his head, looking apologetic. “As much as I don’t like it, Wanda might be on to something there.”

It was a lot of pressure. Could I even pull it off? To have everything riding on my shoulders? I didn’t feel prepared for that.

“Won’t she feel like she can just push me around then? Make demands?” My voice was squeezed down by the tightness of my throat, coming out thin and reedy.

Wanda gave my shoulders a squeeze and let go, which was about as physically affectionate as Wanda got. “That’s kind of what I’m counting on.”

The others were all looking at me expectantly, so I swallowed back everything that was threatening to well up. I wasn’t going to show how scared I was to some mean girl with a phone. I’d faced vampires, and winter Fae, and a Fury bent on vengeance. I’d faced a Wendigo. I knew I could do this, too. I wasn’t going to be alone, no matter what it felt like.

“We’ll only be a shout away,” Lorcan assured me, the soft burr of his brogue quiet in the night. “We’ve got your back, Poppy.”

They did. I knew they did, because they’d had it through all the other crises, too. We’d face this one, just like we had all the others. Because that was what Haven Hollow was, a community that looked out for one another.

“Besides, you’re the one who got us into this mess, so you can get us out,” Wanda added with a grin.

I couldn’t argue with that. So, I didn’t even try.

Instead, I took a breath, and we all started moving quietly down the road towards the water plant. Some of my unease must have rippled down the bond stretching between Andre and me, because I felt him reach out to me. I felt his assurance, his confidence in me, and it felt just a little bit like there was a warm hand slipping into mine.