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  “Comfortable?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “No, not comfortable. I was in a rut. I had no clue what to do if I left, and back then I didn’t want to think about the fight we’d have dividing the magazine. I guess Ellison took care of that for me.”

  “Tell me what happened with that.” Aunt Teran folded her legs under her in the chair. She was tall and sturdy, and she had hair down to her butt. It had been salt and pepper when I last saw her, but now it was black, streaked with electric blue, and it looked amazing. She was wearing jeans, a rainbow-pride top, and her throw-back granny glasses. Teran had never married, and she had never told me why.

  “I did something everybody always warns you not to do. I signed a document—a notarized one at that—without reading it. We were in a hurry, Ellison assured me that what I was signing were articles of incorporation. But the notary was actually a friend of Ellison’s who was helping him. The articles of incorporation turned out to be a prenup. They got my signature but actually managed to change the date, pre-dating it to before our wedding. I gave Ellison full control over the magazine, as well as giving him full ownership of the house, but I can’t prove anything.” I groaned, bringing my knees up to lean against them.

  “I feel like such a fool. I trusted him and he screwed me over so bad my lawyer couldn’t untangle it. We told the judge what happened, but it was useless. It was my word against Ellison’s, and he has some powerful friends in the Seattle law community, including that judge. So he basically conned me out of the magazine I started and any interest in the house.”

  I winced, glancing at her. Teran could be mighty blunt, but I really needed some TLC now, not a lecture.

  She stared at me for a moment, then the next, she was by my side, scooching me toward the center of the sofa. She slid in behind me and began to rub my shoulders.

  Sighing, she said, “You know, sometimes the con artists of the world catch us by surprise. Ellison was good at hiding his true nature, although I never liked him very much. He was such a pompous ass. I’m not going to scold you about this. But…”

  That “but” hung in the air, and I dreaded hearing what was attached to it.

  “But what?” I finally asked.

  “The thing I can’t excuse is the fact that you spent eighteen years sublimating yourself for a man who wasn’t worth a fraction of what you bring to the table. How the hell did everything we taught you go sliding out the window?” She slid her arms around my shoulders, hugging me from behind. “What happened, child?”

  I shrugged, scooting to the side and turning around. I couldn’t face her.

  “I don’t know, to be honest. At first I fought. I fought to celebrate my holidays. I fought to practice our traditions. I argued about the clothes he wanted me to wear. I made excuses for his rudeness, especially around other Otherkin. Basically, I tried to hold my own, but after a while, he wore me down.”

  “Why didn’t you leave him?”

  Again, I had no good answer. “I don’t know. You’d think I would have, right? But…somewhere along the way, I guess I lost my confidence.” I glanced over my shoulder at her. “I gave up. When someone tells you you’re stupid time after time, you begin to believe it.”

  Teran gave me a hug. “Well, that ends now. That ends tonight.”

  I ducked my head, smiling. “I’ve missed you.”

  “And I’ve missed you, too. But I knew that you weren’t ready to see me, child. I remind you too much of your mama.” She stroked my hair, pulling it back. “As wavy as it ever was.”

  I laughed. “We’re always going to envy each other’s hair.”

  Teran had straight hair, down to her ass. Mine was dark brown and wavy. Not corkscrew curly, but long and wavy and just rough enough to never take a good shine.

  “And yours is as smooth and silky as ever. I love the blue, by the way.” I sighed, then said, “You’re right, though. I wasn’t ready to face their deaths yet. But I guess…now I have to. It feels good to be back in Moonshadow Bay, though. I’ll see Ari a lot more. Ellison didn’t like her and he almost broke up our friendship.”

  “You two were always thick as thieves,” Teran said. “All right, I’d better get on home. Ree and Roo are probably hungry.” My aunt had two hound dogs. They were as old as the hills—or at least, as old as most dogs get—and they showed no sign of slowing down. But her familiar was a great horned owl that lived out in the trees near her house. They had a deep connection that crossed the species barrier.

  I walked her to the door and she gave me a hug, then handed me a key. She had taken care of the house after my parents died. “Here, you’ll want this back.”

  I shook my head, folding her fingers over the key. “No, you keep it. Just in case.” I pressed my lips together, thinking of my mother and father. “You never know what’s going to happen.”

  “Too true, love,” she said, hugging me. “That’s why you have a key to my house, too. For the same reason.” As she headed down the sidewalk to her car, it occurred to me that I was really, truly, starting over. For the first time in eighteen years, I was embarking on a new stage in my life.

  I walked out on the porch, watching the snow fall. It drifted down, the flakes larger, like thick wisps of cotton candy. There was a softness to the night, and all around the neighborhood, lights twinkled on the windows around the houses.

  I glanced over at the house next door, only to see a “Sold” sign on the front lawn. When I was little, the Hart family had lived there, and I’d played with Sallie Hart, though we weren’t best friends. Now, it looked like her parents were off to greener pastures.

  Slowly descending the steps, I walked out toward the front of the yard. The streetlights cast a muted glow in the winter night, and I closed my eyes as I crossed my arms, jamming my hands deep beneath my armpits to keep warm. My breath hung in the air, vaporous—like a miniature cloud. It was cold, but I just wanted to let the peace that came with the snowfall encompass me.

  “Hello…” The voice came from over my shoulder, but when I jerked around, I couldn’t see anybody there. It was a woman’s voice, clear and familiar though, and I was sure that I had heard it. I glanced around, suddenly realizing I was going to be alone in the house. While Ellison hadn’t been much comfort, at least he’d been a warm body.

  “Can you hear me?” The voice echoed again, this time from the other side. I whirled around, but still, there was no one in sight.

  Holding my breath, I turned and ran back up the sidewalk and took the steps two at a time. Once inside, I slammed the door behind me. I didn’t have the energy to deal with ghosts tonight, and since there hadn’t been any stranger lurking in the bushes, that was all I could assume the woman’s voice had been. There were certainly enough of them hanging around.

  Shaking, I locked the door. Tomorrow I would dig out my mother’s herbs and make a protection charm, but for tonight, I decided to sleep on the sofa. In the kitchen, I found the biggest, meanest-looking knife my mother had owned. Clutching the hilt, I returned to the living room. I placed the knife on the coffee table within easy reach and then, exhausted, I curled up under the afghan on the sofa and promptly fell into a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter Two

  Morning brought with it a clearer head and a calmer nature. I woke to a rapping on the door and trudged over, rubbing my eyes. Not only had I forgotten to take off my makeup, I had also forgotten to undress, so my jeans and shirt were wrinkled, and I felt a strong need for a shower. I still smelled like soot and lighter fluid.

  I opened the door to find Ari standing there. She squeed when she saw me.

  “You’re here! I’m so glad!” She planted a kiss on my cheek as she stood back. “You look like how a rough morning feels after a hard night,” she said. Ari was always blunt, and I could count on her to be straight with me. She blew on her hands. “Let me in—it’s cold out here.”

  Suddenly aware that I was blocking the door, I quickly moved aside. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean�
�oh, never mind. You woke me up and I’m pre-caffeine, pre-food, pre-brushing my teeth.”

  Ari giggled—she could always find the humor in just about everything—and walked me back to the living room. “You need a shower. You smell like a campfire. What happened? Did you stop to make s’mores on the way up here?”

  I snorted. “No. I decided to torch Ellison’s wedding tux, my wedding dress, and the key to his convertible. Which, I might add, may have a bad case of—” My cell phone rang at that moment and I glanced at it. Sure enough, it was Ellison. “Oh joy. He must have found the convertible,” I said, letting the call go to voice mail.

  “January, what did you do to his car?” Ari’s eyes twinkled. “I know you. You didn’t just leave quietly.”

  I grinned. “I may have opened the window. And a hose may have found its way into said open window, and the water may have gotten turned on.” I grinned. “I had to leave the bastard some parting gift. After all, he stole my magazine, blacklisted me, and had the nerve to get engaged to his bimbo before we were even divorced.”

  Ari let out a snort. “You didn’t disappoint me, lady. All right, go get your ass in the shower. I’ll poke around in the kitchen and see if there’s any coffee.”

  “Instead of that, can we just go out for breakfast? After I shower, of course.” Even I couldn’t stand my own stench at that point.

  “Sure.” She plunked herself down in the rocking chair. “Go wash up and change.”

  I hurried to the bathroom, carrying my suitcase with me. I had plenty of other clothes but I had packed a suitcase specifically for the first few days until I had unpacked and gotten myself situated.

  I showered, basking in the warmth of the water, then dried off and changed into a pair of jeans and a V-neck hunter green cashmere sweater. Sitting at my mother’s vanity, I brushed my hair—it was naturally wavy and down to my lower back. I kept it a deep mahogany—sometimes veering into burgundy—thanks to a dye bottle. I applied my makeup. I always went for the old glamour girl pinup look with cat-wings and burgundy lipstick. Finally, I gathered the mass of waves back into a ponytail and tied my hair back using a green scarf.

  Standing back, I took a long look at myself. I washed up pretty good, even though Ellison had been bitching about my weight for years. I was curvy, an hourglass shape. At five-nine, I was a firm size 14. He had wanted me to get down to a size 2 maximum, preferably a size zero. That was never going to happen.

  I slid on a pair of black boots and zipped them up. They were platform, but with a nonskid sole. Ellison had hated them because he said they looked goth, and that I was “too old for that shit.” Ellison had said a lot of nasty things to me, come to think of it.

  I hurried downstairs. “Ready?” I asked, entering the living room.

  Ari was standing in the center of the room, frowning. “You have a ghost?”

  “What?”

  “I asked, do you have a ghost? I heard somebody talking a moment ago.”

  I frowned. “I’m not sure. I thought I heard a woman talking when I was standing out in the front yard last night, so maybe? What did they say?”

  Ari scrunched up her face. “I’m not actually sure, to be honest. I couldn’t make it out. It was just like…murmuring, you know?”

  “Well, I’m not going to sweat it right now. Let’s go get breakfast, then will you help me unpack? Aunt Teran’s coming over this afternoon to help.”

  Ari loved my aunt. Teran had kept us stocked in weed, and me in birth control, when we were teenagers, because as liberal and magical as my mother had been, those weren’t easy things to ask for. Now, of course, pot was legal, and I could get my own birth control. But it was still a good memory to have.

  “She is? Good, I haven’t seen her since the funeral. Well, we’ve run into each other in the grocery store but…” Ari paused, then said, “Are you going to be all right living here? Now that your parents are…”

  “I believe the word you’re searching for is ‘dead,’ ” I said.

  She grimaced. “Yeah, but I wasn’t sure how blunt to be.”

  “It’s all right. You don’t have to tiptoe around the subject. I miss them, but I’ll be okay. And yes, I’ll be fine. I’ve always loved this house, and while it’s going to be tough going through their things, I have to do it sometime. I might as well start when I’m unpacking my own things.”

  We headed out to Ari’s car. She had a big old SUV that had seen better days, but the vehicle was as sturdy as a tank, and it would probably run until she drove it into the ground. As we headed toward the town center, I thought again about the voice. If I had a ghost, maybe it was my mother, come back to watch over me.

  We decided to eat at Lucky’s. The joint looked a lot like it had when I last visited, though it was a far cry from the basic diner it had been when I was little and my father brought me here for milkshakes. The décor now sported a shamrock theme, which almost tipped on the side of kitschy, and the basic blue walls had been changed out for yellow and green.

  I ordered a waffle, two sides of bacon, and a triple peppermint mocha with plenty of whipped cream. Ari ordered the blueberry pancakes and a gingerbread latte.

  “So, what’s changed around here that I should know of?” I glanced around. There wasn’t anybody in the diner I recognized, but given Moonshadow Bay had a population of about five thousand people, that wasn’t odd.

  Ari leaned back in her seat, staring out of the window. The snow was beginning to fall again. “Not much, to be honest. Oh, some new shops have gone in. There’s a new magic shop in town called the Broom & Besom, and the owners are pretty hard-core aquanistas.”

  Aquanistas focused their magic on the element of water, and just like the force they worked with, they could be pretty harsh at times. People liked to think of water as gentle, but really—water was one of the strongest forces. It could burrow through earth, quench fire, and crowd out air to drown people.

  “Okay, I’ll have to drop in there after I see what my mother kept in stock. It’s time I get back to my magic, now that Mr. Asshole isn’t here to bitch about it.” I hadn’t exactly stopped practicing my magic, but I had needed to be discreet about it, hiding most of what I did from him. “What else is new?”

  “Well, a few people moved away but new ones came to take their place. Mostly, you know, people tend to stay put once they arrive in Moonshadow Bay. The Gull Catcher broke his leg last month and he’s in the hospital.”

  “I bet he’s freaking unhappy as hell,” I said. The Gull Catcher was a coyote shifter who spent a lot of his time on the beach trying to catch gulls while he was in his coyote form. He was a veteran who had PTSD, and he was mostly harmless, though he was definitely on the eccentric side. He made a living doing odd jobs around the town.

  Ari paused, then after the waitress brought our mochas, asked, “What are you going to do now?”

  I thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Find a job. Ellison made it impossible for me to work in Seattle. You know how firmly he entrenched himself in the art and publishing community in Seattle. When we split, he spread a bunch of rumors about me and basically turned all his friends against me. They sided with him because he managed to keep control of the magazine and could make or break them with bad reviews. And he just fits the literati artēēst vibe that runs through the upper crust there.”

  “He wouldn’t have that magazine without you,” Ari said.

  “I know.” I shook my head. “I’ll never forgive him for that.”

  Ellison and I had started the magazine together, wanting to focus on the Seattle arts scene. I had done all the hefty lifting, had come up with most of the ideas and the design, but somehow, Ellison emerged as the creative genius. I’d been willing to take the back seat because I loved what we were doing, but when I found out in the divorce proceedings that he had screwed me out of the magazine, I’d lost it and screamed at the judge, which didn’t help my case.

  The same with the house. My lawyer managed to get me fifty percent of
all our liquid assets, but Ellison had owned the house before we met and though I thought he had put me on the title, I had never checked. He had added that little gem to the prenup too. I came away with enough to live on for a couple years if I was thrifty, but I wanted to keep that in the bank.

  “At least my parents’ house is paid for and I only have to pay property taxes and upkeep on it,” I muttered. “So, is the Moonshadow Bay Monitor still in business?”

  “Yeah, it is, but Fairweather and his son Idyll are barely making rent. I doubt they’re hiring.” Ari frowned. “I know of a job that’s open, but I’m not sure what you’ll think about it,” she said.

  “What is it? Is it in my field?” I perked up, stabbing into my waffle after I drowned it in syrup. I loved waffles and syrup and everything maple.

  Ari cleared her throat. She was wearing her Cheshire cat grin of hers, so I knew whatever she was about to suggest would be questionable. “So, I just happen to know the manager of a website about the paranormal. The website actually belongs to a larger network of similar sites. The one based here in Moonshadow Bay is called Conjure Ink. They’re looking for investigative writers.” She grinned, waiting for my response.

  I groaned. “You mean like the Star or the Enquirer? Tabloid fodder?” My stomach sank. I couldn’t go that low.

  “Not necessarily. I’m not sure what their slant is, but I do know that Tad’s looking for someone who has both psychic abilities and can write. You should call him. I have his number.” She handed me a slip of paper on which she had written Tad Gelphart’s phone number and email address, as well as the URL of the website. “Tad’s a good guy, a little nerdy, but he truly loves his work and I think the people who work for him are happy.”

  I fingered the paper, then slipped it into my purse. I really didn’t want to work retail, and my training and degree were focused on the direction of writing. “All right, I’ll call him. You’re sure that old Fairweather doesn’t need anybody?”