In the Safe Harbor Café, Lily and I met with the head of the witches, a young woman named Ashley, who had brought both of her children with her. A fairy we had recently healed brought charges of dark magic against one of Ashley’s witches. As guardians in the employ of the Safe Harbor Café, Lily and I were honor-bound to heal the fairy and see that his grievances were heard by the witches. But his wasn’t the only case we attempted to solve.

“Will you be able to find out tonight if she had anything to do with the disappearances of the missing women?” Lily asked.

“I should be able to. It will be impossible for her to lie once she is compelled to be truthful by the coven. If she doesn’t have anything to do with it, I will ask one of my sisters, who is skilled in divination, to scry for them,” Ashley responded.

“You don’t know of any missing women, right?” I asked. I couldn’t help myself, and Lily sucked me into her mystery.

“Not from my coven. But that represents a fraction of the active witches, vodun priestesses, brujas, and other assorted male magic practitioners that fall under my purview. So, someone outside of my personal coven could go missing, and unless I was told about it, I would never find out. I can’t give you a yes or no answer. Before tonight’s meeting, I’ll call the leaders of various fractions and ask. If it isn’t this witch’s work—and I doubt it is—what do you think is hunting us?” she asked.

Lily said, “I’m not even sure we are being hunted. Being a woman isn’t the safest thing in the world, and these women have nothing in common other than their sex. It really could be a sad coincidence.”

“Come on,” I said. “Be realistic. We aren’t really an at-risk population for that kind of random violence. If you told me a bunch of people in our community was being killed by roving gangs of ro-langs, I’d believe you because that kind of crap seems to happen all the time. But violence like the humans have? No way. Dryads don’t even have that much contact with humans, and wolves and vamps are very, very strong. They aren’t that easy to kill,” I told her.

“If it was just the dryad, I’d believe you. But honestly, baby vamps are everybody’s victim. And Alice? Well, who knows? You never know who’s in an abusive relationship. Just because a woman’s strong doesn’t mean she can’t be a stronger someone’s victim,” Lily said.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Ashley chimed in. “I agree with you, but I have a bad feeling about this. I think you’re right, and these three disappearances are connected. I’m going to go start making calls about tonight’s coven meeting. Will you two be so kind as to bring Mr. Wasp to the meeting?” Ashley asked.

“Of course. Provided he can tolerate me. Will my being there before the trial be a problem?” Lily inquired politely. As guardians bound to the Safe Harbor Café, we had a responsibility to not only heal those in the community who needed it but also help solve disagreements between various factions and occasionally even serve as the executioners of the Safe Harbor’s will. I really preferred the cooking and healing to the justice and vengeance part of our jobs.

“You’ll have to stay away or dampen down your powers until the proceedings start, but other than that, it won’t be a problem. We don’t need magic to function or exist like some others.” Ashley ran her hands through her hair. “I’ve got to get going. I want to start making phone calls to the various factions to check that everyone is more or less accounted for.” Ashley’s tone changed to a more official-sounding one. “Thank you for calling us. I take any report of black magic within my coven seriously, and I want you two to know that we are on the same side here. I know that we witches can be a little shut off from the rest of the magical community, but if other women are missing, we will be happy to help.” She paused and grimaced at her word choice, “Not happy. But willing.” Ashley sounded more casual again and a little unnerved. “I’ve just been getting a worse and worse feeling about these missing women. Unfortunately, clairvoyance isn’t really one of my blessings. So, a bad feeling could mean anything. The vibes are bad,” Ashley said. She had her hands on her baby’s legs, and she swayed back and forth as she spoke.

In a formal tone, Lily said, “Thank you for your offer of assistance. What time is the coven meeting tonight?”

“It starts at dusk and goes on until the morning. You can start the trial as soon as the moon is over the horizon so that she doesn’t have a chance to escape. This time of the month, that’s about 7:15.” Ashley kept bouncing as she spoke.

“So, we will have to close the restaurant for the night,” I said. Lily nodded, and the café turned off the neon open sign as if to say, “that’s alright.” I smiled, and Ashley looked slightly awestruck. It was very weird to suddenly notice you were inside of something that understood you and could shape itself to fit your needs—it was also kind of creepy.

“Okay.” Ashley pulled her phone out from a pouch on the waistband of her baby carrier. “Let me get your phone number, and I will text you the location of the gathering. Depending on how these phone calls go, I may change the location so that we can do some serious divination work for the missing women and spells for their safe keeping, as well as punish the dark witch.”

“Sure, okay,” I said and shifted so that I could get my phone out of my back pocket. We exchanged numbers, and afterward, Ashley got her daughter and headed out of the door. As they left, they knelt down again and thanked the Safe Harbor Café. I found it touching to see someone else appreciate the restaurant the way we did.

“What’s the plan?” I asked Lily.

“I don’t really have one? I think our best chance to learn what happened to those women is tonight at the coven meeting. I think it’s probably this dark witch. I know Ashley thinks she would have noticed it, but honestly, she didn’t notice that this person was a dark witch at all, and she has a young baby, so she may be a bit distracted,” Lily said.

“I think it’s this witch, too. After all, how much evil can there be?” Mr. Wasp and Lily both looked at me like I was dumb. “What? Why are you guys looking like that?”

“Wind blows it; you must be stupid. How much evil could there be? There is as much evil as there is good. At best, they are balanced; at worst, there is slightly more evil. Don’t ever think you’re going to run out of evil,” the fairy said, sounding old, which I supposed he was, despite being wee.

“I don’t know. I hope that’s not true.” As I was about to start pontificating about people having inherently good natures, Jen came through the door. Lily got up and hugged her. Jen sort of sagged into the hug. “Any news?” I asked, although I could already tell that even if there was, it wasn’t good.

Jen slowly straightened and came back into herself. Wolves are very aware of their presentation, and I’m sure that any sign of being sad or scared could be taken for weakness. It was possible that her tears last night and this hug were the only times that Jen had really allowed herself to be upset over her sister’s disappearance. “The pack has agreed to help my father. But I’m not sure what they can do. They all went out there last night, and now, they say the trail’s gone cold, or there are too many scents covering it up. Of course, there are too many scents! Every howling pack leader in the area trooped out there last night. I’m not sure what the packs plan to do beyond that. Have you guys heard anything new?”

“Sort of?” Lily said. “There’s a missing dryad, and there’s a missing vampire as well. We don’t know if they’re connected to each other or to your sister. But all three women went missing around the same time. So, we’re looking into it. The witches are going to help us tonight. We don’t really know anything yet, but we are moving toward knowing something.” Lily hugged her again. I wondered if the nullification of the wolf in Jen made her more open around Lily.

“I’m sorry we don’t have more to tell you.” I hated to see someone hurting, especially if their hurts were the kind I couldn’t heal.

“Here, sit down. When was the last time you ate?” If I couldn’t fix her problems, at least I could feed her. And food always helped.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. Nothing sits right in my stomach anymore,” Jen said, sitting down at the table.

“Hello, Wolf. I’m sorry your sister is missing,” he said.

“Is there something I can make for you, Mr. Wasp?” I asked.

“Do you have any fruit? Unless you happen to have a flowering potted plant in the kitchen? That would really be best,” the fairy said.

“I don’t; all I have is an air plant. I’ve got a black thumb, and nothing else survives.” I shrugged.

“Aren’t you like the greatest healer of an age or something super impressive? How come you can’t keep a plant alive?” Mr. Wasp asked. “Shouldn’t you have like a medicinal herb garden or something? Can’t the guardhouse just make one?”

“When I need herbs, I buy them off the internet like everyone else. I think I just don’t have the emotional energy to take care of anything else, and the Safe can’t make living things. What kind of fruit would you like? I have dark berries; would that be okay?” I asked him.

“Berries? At this time of year? That’s not right.” The fairy scrunched his small face in disgust.

“Right or not, that’s what I have. And for what they cost, they taste pretty good. They aren’t true summer berries, but you can’t tell a hothouse berry in a cake anyway,” I told him, although it wasn’t strictly true. Better ingredients always made for better food.

“I’ll eat the damn things. It’s too late in the season to be turning down free food. I could use it after being sick for so long, but it’s not a natural thing. I think I’ll also try some of that cake. And I believe you biggers also have something called beer. Could I have one of those to try as well?”

“We do not have beer here. But we do have coffee. Have you ever had that?”

“No, I haven’t. Is it good?” he asked.

“Um, not really? You get used to it, and a lot of people can’t handle life without it. But you’ll probably think it’s gross,” I told him.

He flew even with my face and asked, “Why would you offer me a gross drink? Why would anyone drink it?” He had a really good point. 

“That’s a good question. It has a drug—caffeine—in it that makes you . . . sort of high. So, I guess that’s why we all drink it. Besides, if you dump enough milk and sugar into it, it tastes okay.” I kept trying to focus on his eyes, but his face was so tiny, and he kept flitting about. It sort of made my head hurt. Jen was watching with a half-smile. I smiled at her. “Jen, I’ll bring you a sandwich and some coffee.”