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Chapter Text

Gary sat down at his desk and huffed a sigh when he saw the stack of phone messages on his desk. He’d somehow missed several calls in the time it took him to get his weak coffee from the break room, munch on a slightly stale bagel, and amble to his seat with extreme reluctance. He had a lingering headache and was not fully prepared for the day.

“Hey, June,” he called over to the police station secretary who had just hung up the desk receiver.

She barely turned her swivel chair to face him and glared at him over her half-moon spectacles. “She’s called six times this morning, Gary,” she said, jabbing her well-manicured hand toward the phone. “That was her again.”

“Jesus,” he said, not bothering to correct the elderly woman in her casual address towards him.

She should technically have called him “Sheriff Hallet” like everyone else in the station, but since June was in her eighties and had worked there since its remodel in 1948, he always let her impertinence slide. Besides, he had the sneaking suspicion that if she ever decided to retire, the Tucson Police Department would crumble to the ground. She kept the place running as smoothly as possible.

He picked up his desk phone and called the brusque, unhappy landlady who had been trying to reach him.

“Mrs. Johnson—” he began, but the lady wasn’t having it.

“He’s three months late on his rent. If it’s not paid by tomorrow, I’m throwing everything he owns out on the street.”

“Ma’am, we’re considering it an active crime scene—”

“I don’t give a damn. You come on down here and take a last look around. It’s all going to the dump tomorrow.”

Gary pulled the receiver away from his ear as she hung up on the other end, almost as if she’d stood across the room and thrown it. It certainly wasn’t helping his headache. He heaved a heavy sigh, pressing a hand to his temple once he had returned his phone to its holder. He turned and asked his deputy about the photos that were still in development, and he decided he would have to take care of this on his own. He preferred it that way.

“Hey, Sheriff, you ever going to call my hot friend, Molly?” Deputy Garcia shouted from the other side of the small office just as he was putting on his coat.

He just grunted and shook his head. He was certainly not in the mood to be teased about his love life—or lack thereof.

Garcia rolled her eyes and gave the young trainee beside her a knowing smile. “You’re just afraid she won’t match up to the girl of your dreams.”

“Hey, she’s out there, somewhere,” he said with a smirk before taking several long strides to the door before his departure was interrupted again.

It was an excuse he often used to get out of arranged blind dates with someone’s sister’s-cousin’s-veterinarian who was really quite attractive and very single, but it wasn’t a complete lie. He had no idea what this imaginary woman looked like. He’d met several nice ladies who were all attractive, and kind, and funny, and understanding of his obsession with his work—but they just didn’t spark anything in his gut that told him, here she is, at last—the one I’ve been waiting for. He was an old, ridiculous romantic, and he knew it. After a while, he stopped dating because it felt like a waste of time. And besides, he was starting to become a laughing stock among his coworkers who insisted on setting up their bachelor boss with vague acquaintances, friends, or family members in an attempt to make him less lonely. It did quite the opposite, actually. Their matchmaking attempts only brought his loneliness into sharp reveal.

Mrs. Johnson, the widowed landlady who owned a dilapidated collection of apartments off Main Street, was waiting for him outside the front door. She looked peeved and tired, and the day was just starting.

“Mornin,’” he offered with a wave of his hand.

“Been waiting,” she said. She flicked her half-smoked cigarette into the nearby bushes and stepped inside without a backwards glance.

Gary stepped on the smoking butt to put it out before following her inside. She led him up the narrow staircase and offered short, clipped replies to his questions.

“Three months late, like I said. He was never good about paying—especially when that girl moved in.”

“Girl?”

“Yeah, some red-headed floozy with tattoos and skimpy clothes. I swear, the youth today have no respect for decency…”

“What was her name?” he interjected before she could break into a diatribe about the state of the young people in this country.

“Gillian something. Didn’t care to learn it, since she didn’t contribute any money. Just came in like a regular squatter.”

He grunted and wrinkled his nose slightly against the musty smells reaching his nose from the faded carpet under their feet. There was a healthy layer of grime and nicotine stains on nearly every surface, and he did his best not to touch anything. Mrs. Johnson didn’t seem to share the same concerns as she fished out a key from the pocket of her house dress and let herself into James L. Angelov’s apartment. He sincerely hoped the fingerprint guy had dusted the doorknobs and light switches she touched on their way inside.

“Mail’s there. Gonna dump everything tomorrow.” Before he could remind her for perhaps the third or fourth time that it was still considered a place of interest and should remain untouched, she had shut the door behind her and shuffled back down the hall in her slippers. 

His eyes kept flicking back to the white envelope on the table. The handwriting was unfamiliar, as was the return address in the corner. Standing in the apartment of a missing murder suspect, and going against absolutely every ounce of training in his many years of service, Gary opened the letter.

--

Gary picked up his suitcase from baggage claim and walked out to the line of cabs waiting by the curb.

The driver laughed when he was given the address. “We don’t drive there. I’ll take you to town, but that’s as far as I go.”

As a sheriff, he could have used his position of authority to insist on it, but he decided not to push the issue. Besides, he was going to a very small town and would rather keep his arrival on the down low for as long as possible. The cabby rambled on about local legends and superstitions—something about witchcraft and the Owens family, but Gary wasn’t really listening. His hand went to his jacket pocket like an automatic gesture, almost as natural as the motion he used to flash his badge. The letter was in his hand, and his eyes pored over it like some sort of ritual.

Sometimes I feel there is a hole inside of me, an emptiness that at times seems to burn. I think if you lifted my heart to your ear, you could probably hear the ocean.

The words haunted him. He’d read it so often, he could probably recite the entire thing in his sleep, even the mention of her daughters and their run-in with the local kids, or the quirky aunts who insisted on something called Midnight Margaritas. He had developed a picture in his mind of the author, but even his vivid imagination couldn’t pull anything except a hazy sense that there was something familiar about this Sally Owens.

The cab stopped by the only inn at the center of town, which was just what he’d expected from a place with a population of roughly six-hundred people. He dropped off his suitcase in his room, grabbed his attaché case, and walked the half mile to the Owens house. He paused at the edge of the somewhat uneven white picket fence before stepping through the gate. He should have walked to the front door, but something drew his attention to the edge of the yard. There was a shapely figure hunched over and grunting with effort as she hacked at an impressively large rose bush.

“Kind of early for roses, isn’t it?” Gary found himself saying—anything to get the woman to turn and face him.

She glanced over her shoulder, her curtain of long brown hair shifting to the side where it wasn’t stuck to the back of her neck against a sheen of sweat. “Can I help you with something?” she asked, her voice as tense and strained as her posture. She was holding a pair of garden shears. Her arms and chest were covered with fresh scratches from the thorns.

It took him half a second to reply as they stared at each other. “I sure hope so,” he said.

It was Sally Owens. He’d know it was her even with his eyes closed, which made no damn sense at all.  

Chapter Text

It was widely accepted that witches possessed a keen sense of impending trouble—a broom falling, blood around the moon, or the clicking of a deathwatch beetle. Sally had always prided herself on knowing when bad things were about to happen. She had known before answering the phone that Gillian was in trouble those many days ago. Her own magic, mixed with a maternal instinct, had awoken her from a deep sleep to go check on Antonia, who was in the midst of a horrific nightmare. Once, she had even seen something in Kylie’s eyes that told her she’d have a fever in three days. Sally had always prided herself on being prepared for the worst (but rarely hoping for the best. What remained of her optimism died with her husband Michael a year ago).

But Sheriff Hallet was a different story entirely. He had walked onto their property like he belonged there, and ever since she had turned around to face him (her own reflection staring back at her from his shiny, star-shaped badge), she felt confused, out of sorts, and wrong. It was more than a sense of guilt over helping Gilly kill Jimmy—twice. It was a heightened sense of fight-or-flight whenever he was near. She was suddenly clumsy and agitated, which went totally against her usual cool-headedness.

It was worsened when she realized he had read her last letter to Gilly, the one where she had allowed herself to pour out her deepest fears and regrets, her aching loneliness and longing that consumed her. He had shown it to her and then promptly returned it to the breast pocket of his leather jacket.

That gesture struck a chord in her chest, and she found herself saying, “I’m sorry—you seem very familiar.”

But then Gilly had sauntered down the stairs in her skimpiest summer dress. The contrast couldn’t have been starker between them—Sally, with her messy hair and scratches all over her skin, and Gillian, who was putting on her best and most provocative smile. And then Sally had to go and smack her head on a decorative flour sifter on the wall. It was honestly quite ridiculous.

She quickly busied herself with making a cup of coffee and tried not to watch Mr. Hallet as he withstood Gilly’s attempts at seduction. Sally had seen this song and dance hundreds of times, and the men always turned into a puddle of goo at her sister’s feet. An odd, tight sensation filled the pit of her stomach when Gilly turned on the whole “let me read your palm” routine, but she couldn’t bite back a smile when the sheriff asked for his hand back with a somewhat peevish look on his handsome features. Sally was in the middle of breathing a sigh of relief once her sister had told him their agreed-upon story (“he hit me and I haven’t seen him since”) when the sheriff suddenly turned his attention to Sally.

He seemed to recognize she might be the one to crack. He wasn’t wrong. She felt vulnerable and raw under his gaze, and her treacherous tongue wanted to tell him the whole truth. He asked whose car was in the driveway. Before she could stammer out a response, valiantly fighting back the urge to blurt out everything, Gilly jumped in to say it was her car. Well, Mr. Hallet was far too smart for that. Of course the car was registered in Jimmy’s name.

“We—we stole it, and it’s a crime,” Sally uttered, quite without her own control.

And suddenly the floodgates opened as Mr. Hallet took a step closer. The words just came pouring out in a mixed-up jumble, despite Gilly’s pointed glare and Sally’s own attempts to stop. She claimed Jimmy had basically kidnapped her sister (“well, it was sort of like a…a little ‘nap,” is what she had actually said—oh, God, help her). Sally felt like she was floating above herself watching it happen without having any control. Mr. Hallet and Gilly were giving her the strangest look, and then she actually snorted and laughed, adding that her sister had the worst taste in men. It was all so humiliating as she continued to stammer and eventually strung together a cohesive statement.

“So, anyway, I picked her up and drove her right back here, and we would be so—happy to give him back his car because it is a crime, and, as you say…” she paused, devolving back into a stuttering mess when he suddenly reached out with his pristine, white handkerchief. She realized, with a start, that he was wiping at a drop of blood that was dripping from one of the many scratches on her collarbone. The small touch sent a strange sensation through her, like she wanted to throw herself into his arms, which was absolutely ridiculous.

He had to ask his question a second time wondering if anyone knew where Jimmy was, and Sally forcibly pressed her lips together to keep from saying, he’s buried in the garden. She could only shake her head in response.

That same urge to bridge the gap between them was nearly overpowering when he leaned down and asked, “Do you mind if I just took a look around?”

Again, all she could do was shake her head as she met his gaze. His brow was furrowed, and the crow’s feet at the edges of his eyes were more pronounced as he squinted at her. The suspicion and disbelief was evident on his face, even though he clearly tried to hide his stronger emotions to maintain a sense of collected, confident ease.

Gilly was just staring at Sally with wide eyes. What is wrong with you?! She mouthed.

I don’t know! Sally responded.

She felt like she wanted to tear her own hair out, especially as she watched the sheriff amble around the outside of the house and give the main floor a cursory glance. He was tall but stockily built, and he had a thick accent that declared his Southern origins to go along with his ‘yes ma’am’ and polite gentility to fit the stereotype. But he was also direct. He sat them down at the dining room table and laid out picture after horrifying picture of a young woman who had likely died at the hands of the devil, or James L. Angelov. The brand burned into her face—from Jimmy’s own ring—was the final nail in the coffin. Sally and Gilly looked at each other, and the guilt was overpowering. Sally kept her hands folded and pressed against her lips as the sheriff told them he’d appreciate their help.

“He’s being very thorough,” Sally said, once they were alone in the house.

Gilly sauntered over and leaned against her sister’s shoulder as they watched the sheriff from the side porch. He was using a business card to brush dirt from the driver’s seat of Jimmy’s car into a tiny plastic baggy. He shut the door and shouted for the tow truck driver to move on, and the two women stared at the two-tone convertible as it was carried off.

“You were right, though. He is cute,” Gilly said.

“You seriously can think about that right now? When we’re under suspicion of—” she stopped cold when they heard approaching footsteps.

“I’m headed back into town. Anything you need, feel free to call me at the Garden Bed and Breakfast in town.” He passed a crisp, clean card into Sally’s outstretched hand.

They stared at each other wordlessly. There was a strange push-pull sensation, like a rubber band stretched between them as his fingers brushed against her bare palm, against the slim scar in the center.

“Thanks, Sheriff,” Gilly said, effectively breaking the tense, quiet moment that had fallen over them.

“Call me Gary,” he said to both of them, but his eyes lingered on Sally.

She forced herself to look away.

“Bye, Gary!” Gilly called out with a playful wave.

He turned and walked off the property, but Sally was already inside heating the water for the coffee she never actually got around to making.

“He only had eyes for you, Sal.”

“Now is not the time to think about that.” But she didn’t know if she said it for Gillian’s benefit or her own.

--

Gary stepped into his rented room at the inn and tossed his leather attaché case onto the bed. The walk back to town had been pleasant, but he hoped he could borrow or rent a car for his time to speed up the process. Even though the quaint little island was pleasant, he was agitated and ill-at-ease. Sally’s dark eyes filled his mind, and he kicked the toe of his cowboy boots into the bedpost—hard. It didn’t jog his thoughts away from her, though. With a frustrated grunt, he pulled the file from his case and decided to spread out the photos, reports, and newspaper clippings onto the bedspread. Maybe if he just dove into the case, he’d forget about Sally for a while. But her letter, where it rested in his coat pocket, burned against his chest. He tossed his coat in a cushioned chair by the window and ignored it, for once.

The next day, he decided to do some light canvasing of the area to get a feel for the general opinion of the Owens family. He was certain to hear some interesting things, given the cab driver’s ramblings on the journey to town, but he wasn’t expecting the townspeople’s entirely mixed (but adamant) opinions on the matter.

“Go arrest her!” one older lady demanded, without knowing any crime had been committed at all.

“The dark-headed one cooks up placentas at her little shop in town.”

“No, it’s a placenta bar! She mixes them like cocktails. It’s why the aunts never age.”

“On Halloween, they all jump off the roof and fly!”

“If they get mad at you, they hex you,” this, from a young boy clearly suffering from some sort of rash all over his body. Gary couldn’t help smirking a bit, recalling an instance referred to in Sally’s letter.

The boy’s mother insisted it was just coincidence while the other warned him not to get on the bad side of “those witches.”

“I don’t know about the Bulgarian,” another woman said, referring to his question about James L. Angelov. “But I would not be surprised if he turned up in a ditch somewhere.”

Gary was startled by that proclamation, especially when another young woman added, “Sara, that’s not true. She’s not saying they murdered him, just that—they shook his hand and he died later. It’s all very mysterious.”

He was amazed at the ready willingness the people had to discuss witchcraft, as though it were part of reality and not just fairy tales. Even the town historian, who was also the head librarian, showed him hand-drawn illustrations and stories referencing two matriarchs of a well-established family who had plenty of conspiracy surrounding their existence on the island. He was skeptical, of course, especially when she referenced a curse that had been laid on the family.

“If any man dared take on an Owens woman, he’d live briefly in the euphoria of her love until meeting an untimely death.” She said this with such a severe expression that Gary had to fight valiantly against the scoff that wanted to escape his lips.

A curse on any man who loved an Owens woman…it was bizarre. Still, it was hard to ignore the rather storied track record of the women of the family. The two aunts, Bridget (“Jet”) and Frances had worked their way through at least three husbands, each. The records were a bit spotty dating back to the 50’s, but each death could be ruled an accident or purely a cruel twist of fate. Gillian’s past was much murkier when it came to men, and he had no way of tracing the many boyfriends she might have worked her way through on her way to Jimmy. But Sally’s husband had died a year prior after being struck by a delivery truck, and there were no other marriages on record.

“She’ll turn into a spinster like her aunts, no doubt,” one of the more outspoken mothers at the ice cream truck had told him that afternoon. “Michael was the love of her life, poor thing.”

Gary didn’t know what to make of that. But he did have a nagging suspicion most of the day that he was being watched—more than the many curious, interested eyes of the townspeople who were excited at the prospect of new gossip with his arrival. Several times, he thought he caught sight of a figure with dark hair ducking behind a truck across the street or into a local shop. The feeling followed him as he canvased for the next two days (having been directed to this or that person’s house for “a real story to tell” in regards to the Owens family).

His suspicions were confirmed when he turned and locked eyes with Sally, who had been staring at him as she walked a block behind him. She visibly panicked and darted into an alleyway. He smiled and carried on as if he hadn’t seen her, but he rather enjoyed the knowledge of her familiar presence the rest of the day. His canvasing finally led him to Sally’s own shop, which he had saved for last. She had apparently stepped out for a coffee, and so he used the opportunity to ask one of her staff members, Carla a few questions. The blonde, husky-voiced woman was quirky and upbeat, and she assured him that Sally was a witch, but she didn’t get into ritual human disembowelment or anything like that.

“She’s not into that kind of thing,” Carla insisted, giving Sally a warm smile as she entered.

Gary’s eyes locked onto hers, and he watched her carefully as she stepped behind the register. She set her coffee down, and he noticed the stirring stick was moving on its own. He blinked at it, wondering if it was some sort of optical illusion. Sally clapped a hand over the top of her steaming coffee and winced when the hot liquid splashed a bit onto her hand. Before he could ask her a question, a male customer suddenly barged in demanding his money back for a product he’d purchased for his scalp condition. He said the more he used, the less it worked, to which she gently reminded him that it wasn’t supposed to go on his scalp. Her eyes darted to the man’s crotch with a meaningful but tight smile. The customer flushed above the collar of his shirt, muttered an apology, and rushed out of the store.

“Can I help you with something?” she said, fixing Gary with the same tight smile.

He was grinning from the humorous exchanged he’d just witnessed, but she was clearly not amused. Carla had encouraged him to try a few products for his hair, since he’d neglected to bring his shampoo, and he decided maybe he could buy Sally’s good opinion if nothing else. It was shockingly expensive for what was basically soap, even if it did smell heavenly. Sally was less than friendly through the entire exchange, and he left the shop with his overly priced products in hand, wondering if he could bill it to the department as a business expense.

“Am I under some kind of surveillance?”

Gary turned and met Sally’s accusatory gaze. “I could ask you the same thing.”

She cleared her throat a few times and tucked a strand of her long hair behind one ear. The sea air was stubbornly loosening the tight bun she’d tied to the top of her head. From her stern expression, it was clear she had no intention of admitting she had been following him.

“If there’s something you want to know, just ask me,” she demanded suddenly.

He let out a sardonic laugh. “I already did. And all’s I can tell you is there appears to be something missing from your story.”

She frowned and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Listen,” he said, taking a step closer. He’d moved as if pulled forward. “I’d like to talk to you some more.”

Her eyes had widened slightly, but he couldn’t read the expression on her face. Unlike the first day they met, she was clearly trying to appear self-possessed and in control. Despite that, he watched her wet her lips with her tongue and swallow before saying, “Well, you know where I work and live.”

He nodded, and as he stepped back, it was as if he had to fight against some invisible force still tugging him towards her. He felt her eyes on the back of his head as he walked the block and a half back to his room at the inn.

Chapter Text

Sally was determined to ignore the growing guilt that was gnawing at her gut every time she looked out the kitchen window. But then, Gillian kept insisting she was getting sick. She was short-tempered and tired all the time, which left all the usual household chores (including cooking for herself, two kids, and her own sister) to Sally. She was tired, too, but that didn’t seem to matter to Gilly. Sally wasn’t sleeping well either, and she was troubled by fragmented, terrifying nightmares nearly every night since the incident. More than ever, she was dogged in her attempts to avoid Gary Hallet, because every time she did, she was reminded of that gnawing guilt, of the body in the garden, and the crime she’d been forcibly involved in to protect her impulsive sister. Furthermore, she just didn’t know what to make of the sheriff. He confused and bewildered her as no other man ever had.

Despite her best efforts, she kept seeing him everywhere over the next few days. He’d walk by her store half a dozen times, or he’d suddenly appear on the other side of the same aisle in the grocery store, and one time, he bumped into her exiting the flower shop.

“Getting something for your girlfriend back in Arizona, Officer Hallet?” she asked him, staring down at the bouquet of daisies he was holding.

He smirked. “You askin’ if I’m single, Sally Owens?”

She was frustrated not to have an immediate comeback. She hadn’t meant to inquire after his relationship status because it didn’t matter to her. It certainly did not.

After a slight pause, he cleared his throat. “I am, by the way. Single. And I thought we agreed to drop the formality.”

“I’d rather stay on the good side of a law officer.” She hesitated, but her tongue ran away with itself, as it always did around him. “But you seem determined to think the worst of me and Gilly.”

“I don’t recall saying that.” He stared down at her with an unreadable expression on his careworn face. “I just meant your story doesn’t quite add up.”

She huffed a sigh and continued walking down the street. When he followed, she gave him a pointed look.

“Oh, they didn’t tell you?” He asked. “I was invited over for breakfast.”

This both surprised and annoyed Sally. Despite her complaints of being ill, Gilly was clearly healthy enough to invite guests over—for which Sally was likely expected to cook. Her sister was a lousy cook. Besides, she had a sneaking suspicion that there was an ulterior motive buried in there somewhere…there always seemed to be one where Gilly and men were concerned. She felt oddly protective of the man beside her. But she’d kiss a frog before admitting it aloud.

He had longer legs than her, and she had to walk quickly to match his pace. “You seem awfully eager this morning.”

“I guess I haven’t had a home cooked meal in a while.”

She pretended to consider him carefully. She could picture him sitting in his tiny apartment at the end of a long, tedious day of work. “Let me guess…Chinese takeout and a beer every night?”

“That’s surprisingly accurate.”

She frowned, honing in on the small details in her mind’s eye. “Guinness. House of Chang, sweet and sour chicken with pork dumplings and…” She gave him a scolding look. “Sugar donuts. Fitting into that stereotype a bit too easily, aren’t you?”

There was a slight hitch in his step as he turned to gaze at her in bewilderment. “How…?”

She shook her head. “I’m a good guesser.” In truth, the image had come to her so easily that it felt like she had actually been there. It seemed more like a memory than a sneak peek into the man’s private life.

“Freaky,” he said under his breath.

Sally ignored the comment, and they lapsed into silence on the walk to the house. It wasn’t altogether uncomfortable. In fact, it was almost companionable. Then, he asked who the avid gardener was, and who had planted the roses, and Sally’s heart sank. She’d almost convinced herself this was a social call. Where Gary Hallet was concerned, this was likely just another attempt to glean information for his case.  

The moment they entered the house, Antonia was there to greet them with her usual bright energy. The sheriff gave her younger daughter the flowers, and she squealed happily at receiving them. Sally wondered if it was just a lucky guess, but they were Antonia’s favorite flower.

“I started the pancakes by myself,” the young girl declared proudly.

“Oh, I am certain to find a mess, aren’t I?” Sally said, wiping at the caked flour on her daughter’s cheek. She led the way to the kitchen while Antonia peppered the sheriff with questions.

“Do you have a gun?” she asked.

“Mm-hmm,” he replied in his low voice.

“Can I see it?”

Sally turned around and met Gary’s bemused gaze as he shook his head. “Nope,” he said, patting Antonia on the head.

He wandered into the small greenhouse area that was attached to the kitchen, and Sally followed him after ensuring Antonia wasn’t going to set anything on fire in her absence. She watched him closely as he picked up a small glass bottle from among a vast collection laid out on the tile countertop. Her stomach lurched when she realized what he was holding. Odd that he had chosen that specific one out of nearly a dozen options—the drug that Gilly had apparently been using on Jimmy for months, which might have contributed to the accidental overdose that eventually killed him. That was a nice way of putting what happened into perspective. Sally certainly had had no intentions of killing a man, bringing him back to life, and then killing him again when he came back worse than before.

“That’s Belladonna,” she explained, crossing her arms and hugging herself to keep from snatching it away from him. That would certainly be suspicious. “People put it in their tea to calm their nerves or relax,” she added.

“Some people also use it as a poison,” he replied with his usual slightly sardonic look.

Sally held his gaze for once. “Which people?” she countered.

“Witch people,” he said with a ghost of a laugh at his own joke.

She nodded her head and took a few steps towards him. It was the opposite direction she wanted to go, but as usual, her body and tongue didn’t seem to listen to her when she was around him. “I guess you found us out, huh?” she said with an attempt at an easygoing smile.

“Mm-hmm,” he said, and his eyes seemed to travel over her face for any signs that she might be lying.

“You should come here on Halloween. You’d really see something, then.”

“Oh, yeah?” he said, his eyes brightening. She wondered if he’d heard that in the town gossip.

“Definitely,” she said with complete sincerity. “We kill our husbands, too. Or is that outside your jurisdiction?”

That seemed to wipe the faint smile off of his face. His eyes watched her as she stepped around him. “Do you have any idea how strange this all sounds?” he asked, telling her a few of the more ridiculous bits of chatter among the locals. “I’ve got people telling me about devil-worship.”

“There’s no devil in the craft,” she interjected, wishing to eradicate that particular misconception immediately.

He nodded, but his brow furrowed. He took another step closer and bent down to meet her at eye-level. Even if she walked past him, he would readjust his posture to accommodate. It was a strange little dance that they were doing in the greenhouse, and it felt so strangely familiar and exhilarating to circle each other like they were sizing each other up.

“And what kind of craft do you do?” he said, cleverly turning the conversation back to her again.

She scoffed. “I manufacture bath oils, soaps, hand lotions, and shampoo. And my aunts, well…they like to meddle in people’s love lives.” She paused, wondering what was going on in his mind behind those blue eyes that were slightly mismatched in color. With a deep breath, she continued. “Magic isn’t just spells and potions. Your badge,” she said, pointing to the pocket where it rested against his chest—and she noted the look of surprise on his face as he pulled it out and gave it to her. “It’s just a star. It can’t stop criminals in their tracks. But it has power because you believe it does.”

He was looking at her so intently that she had to avert her gaze to the shiny, metallic object in her hand. She ran a finger across its smooth surface, wondering why the shape itself stirred some long-forgotten memory in her head. He took a step towards her, and she was suddenly overwhelmed by the close proximity. She could smell his aftershave as he leaned closer, could see that one of his eyes had a slight hint of green in it. His fingers brushed against hers as he retrieved his badge, leaving the hint of warmth in their wake.

“I wish you could believe in me.” Her eyes widened, and she turned away when she realized she’d said the words aloud and not just in her head.

“Ms. Owens,” he said, clearly going back on his desire for informality. He waited until she turned to meet his gaze. “Are you hiding James Angelov?”

Sally knew she couldn’t lie to him. She even tried to say the precise words Gilly had made her practice—but instead, she found a clever little workaround. “Not in this house,” she said truthfully.

But the sheriff wasn’t done. He bridged the distance between them again and glanced over at Antonia before asking, “Did you or your sister kill James Angelov?”

“Oh, yeah, a couple of times.” Sally shut her mouth with an audible snap before rushing to Antonia’s side in the hopes that he’d take it as a joke and not the honest-to-God truth.

--

Gary stared at Sally’s back as she busied herself with cleaning up the countertops that were littered with flour, sugar, and forgotten egg shells. He had no idea what to make of the last thing Sally had just said, and so he decided to help with breakfast to make himself useful. He walked to stand at Antonia’s side, where she was propped up on a stepping stool in order to reach the stove. Though she had made an impressive mess, the pancakes she’d made were sloppy but well-cooked. She was trying to flip them in the air, which was probably why there was a splatter of raw batter all over the stovetop.

“You ever seen a saguaro cactus?” he asked the young girl, to which she shook her head with a glint of excitement in her brown eyes—so like her mother’s. “Step aside, you,” he commanded gently to Sally, who threw her hands in the air and was more than happy to relinquish the task of cooking to him.

He felt her gaze on him as he carefully shaped the batter in the pan and then tossed the flapjack into the air, catching it expertly on the back of the hot cast-iron skillet. Antonia’s eyes were as wide as saucers as she ordered him to do it again. He laughed and happily obliged. He hummed an old favorite tune as he worked and thought for a few seconds that someone else was humming along with him. When he glanced up, Sally had walked to the other side of the room to fetch an extra place setting.

It felt strangely domestic as he and Antonia piled the plate high with pancakes and took them outside.

Kylie joined them and was clearly just as excitable as her younger sister when she asked him, “Can you ride a pony backwards?”

“Backwards, forwards, sideways—you name it,” he said, and he felt Antonia reach into his pocket and pull out his badge.

The two girls gazed at it, and he shook his head with a fond smile. Sally appeared and completed two tasks at once with graceful ease—tucking napkins into the tops of her daughters’ shirts and returning the badge to the sheriff with a muttered apology. He was just about to sit down when Sally stopped him.

“If you’re anything like my girls, you’ll need this,” she said, her eyes locking onto his as she tucked a cloth napkin into his own shirt.

He was overcome by the force of that singular gaze and the surrounding familial warmth that he was sorely tempted to pull her into his arms and kiss her cheek, as though this were some sort of song-and-dance they did every day before meals. He blinked and shook the silly notion from his head before sitting down.

Gillian arrived, looking pale and a bit peaked behind her dark sunglasses. “I can call you Gary, can’t I?” she said in a tone that seemed forcibly bright and cheerful.

They made light chatter, especially with the young girls interjecting to ask him seemingly random questions (what was his favorite song? Would he consider himself to be a nice person? Things of that nature), but Gillian seemed insistent that he try the syrup she had made. Even Sally seemed surprised.

“You made this?” she asked. “But—we have something already in the fridge.”

“Yes, but I cooked this especially for the sheriff,” she replied, giving Sally a look that Gary didn’t quite catch in time as he glanced up.

Sally’s face was grim, and she looked on the brink of saying something as he took the pitcher from Gillian’s hands. Suddenly, Antonia and Kylie leapt to their feet, shouting, “No, no, no!” Without warning, they grabbed the pitcher and ran away with it.

Laughing, but looking purposeful, they ran to a small drop-off that led to the rocky beach that surrounded the massive Owens house. With a cry of triumph, Kylie tossed the clearly offensive substance into the water. They heard the sounds of shattering porcelain. Gillian looked angry, for some reason.

“I guess they didn’t want you to eat that,” Sally said with a soft laugh beside him. He saw an expression of almost relief on her face, and a small warning bell began to ring in the back of his mind.

Chapter Text

Gary had excused himself from breakfast without eating anything. He claimed he forgot about an important phone call and needed to return to the inn. Sally had tried to convince him to stay, for which he was flattered, but he just couldn’t shake the suspicion growing in the pit of his stomach. And he always followed his gut.

He was on his way back to the front of the house alone when he halted at the edge of the rose bush, as if it had called his name. Despite Sally’s rather harsh treatment of it just a few days ago, it had grown back in full force and thickness. It was somehow taller and wider, too. If what she had said about magic was actually true, and she was truly a witch, why hadn’t she just used a spell on it?

He shook his head and turned to leave, deciding it was best to abandon that line of thinking. His pragmatism wouldn’t allow him to explore it, at least…not yet. But just as he took a step toward the front gate, something caught his eye. He leaned toward the bush and saw something shining and silver hanging on a leaf. The thorns scratched his hand as he reached for the object. Gary’s jaw clenched angrily as he pocketed it, and he walked back toward town as quickly as his feet could take him.

Inside, Sally waited until Kylie and Antonia had returned to their rooms before she rounded on Gillian. “You created a spell to banish him? What were you thinking, Gilly?”

“I was thinking it would help us if he wasn’t sniffing around,” Gilly was carrying the nearly full platter of pancakes and had to set them down suddenly to clutch at her side.

Sally ignored this and retorted, “Well, I think he suspected something.”

“He suspected us the moment he got here because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut. You just needed to stick to the story, you know? No body, no crime.” She ran a hand across her forehead, which was looking a little dewy. “Why couldn’t you just lie to him, Sal?”

“I don’t know why!” Sally said sharply, throwing the dirty silverware in the sink with a clatter.

“You know what? I think you like him,” Gilly said as she took a seat on the stairs. Her eyes, which had been dull with pain, suddenly sparked to life with mischief. “And he clearly likes you, too. I think we can use this to our advantage, Sal. I think—”

“You think. Yes, it’s all about you, Gilly. Because none of the decisions you make have any consequences and don’t deeply affect this family.”

“That’s not fair.” She stood to her feet unsteadily and knocked over the vase of daisies as she swayed slightly. “God, I’m sorry,” she said, reaching down to try and collect the shattered pieces of the vase. “I’m just so tired. I’m not sleeping, and I feel like shit—”

“God, do you ever think about anyone besides yourself?” Sally countered, grabbing a towel to catch the water before it seeped into the original, historic wood floors. “I’m so tired of cleaning up your messes.”

Gillian had been walking toward the stairs and turned back to face her sister. “Yes, I’m just a mess. Just one big mess! But you know what, Sal? At least I’ve lived my life, and—you hate me for that because it scares the hell out of you.”

Sally finished wiping the remainder of the water and kept her gaze fixed on the floor. “I don’t hate you.”

But Gillian wasn’t placated by that. “Look at you—you spend so much time trying to be normal, so desperate to gain the approval of others and fit in. Well, guess what? We’ll never fit in because we’re different. And so are your girls.”

Sally knew, on some level, that her sister was just lashing out because she was maybe feeling guilty, or perhaps she really was sick and in pain. But at the mention of her daughters, Sally snapped, “You leave them out of this.” She threw the last shards of the vase into the sink with a crash before stalking out of the kitchen.

“Where are you going?” Gilly demanded.

“Out for a walk.”

Gillian cried out something, but Sally didn’t hear it as she whisked through the back door and slammed it shut behind her with a rush of magic. There was the tinkling sound of shattered glass, but she ignored it, just like she disregarded the little tug in her chest that she knew was Gillian trying to reach out to her. But she wasn’t listening. She needed a breath of fresh air.

Her feet moved as if they had their own plans, and she let them lead the way. She walked at a rapid pace until she was out of breath and clutching her side, feeling an echo of someone else’s pain in that moment. Gillian’s. Sally glanced around and saw that she had wandered onto the community walking path that snaked its way through the bit of wilderness in the center of the island. With a sigh, she ambled toward a small gazebo they had built to commemorate the town’s 150^th birthday. It overlooked a grove of wildflowers. It was her favorite spot to get away from the world.

But as she approached, she saw it was occupied.

Gary Hallet sat staring at those same wildflowers. They swayed in the full afternoon sun in a cheerful manner, but he was feeling far too morose to enjoy them. He felt a familiar itching sensation on the back of his neck and knew before he even turned around who was standing there.

Sally met his gaze, and he saw she was hugging herself tightly. “Hi,” she said so softly that he barely heard it.

He warred with himself, wondering where he could draw the line between his duty as an officer of the law and this incredible, immediate fondness he felt towards a practical stranger. But…she wasn’t a stranger to him. He knew, by the look on her face, that she was feeling vulnerable and angry and raw, that she had probably had a fight with her sister. By the time he reached her, he still hadn’t decided what he was going to say. He also didn’t keep a respectable distance between them. He never could stay too far away from her.

 “I found this in your rose bush,” he said, as though the words were wrenched from him. He lifted his handkerchief and unfolded it, displaying the bright silver object that Sally knew all too well.

She frowned and bit the inside of her cheek. She mustered all of her strength and finally said, “Gilly had that ring when she got here.” It was a close to a lie as she could manage.

“So, it belongs to your sister?” His temper was rising by the second. It was a culmination of anger, disappointment, and frustration that suddenly overwhelmed him.

Her lips tightened into a thin line. “Mm-hmm,” she said, in a perfect imitation of the sheriff without meaning to.

“What are you two playing at?” he said in a raised voice.

He squinted at her in the bright sunshine. He was furious. Before today, he only had word of mouth and circumstantial evidence to convict Sally and Gillian. The stolen car might have been reasoned away easily enough, especially if Gillian was keen to escape a dangerous and abusive situation. Any lawyer worth their salt could have spun the story in her favor. But the ring—the same one that had been used to brand that poor, innocent girl’s skin, the one that had been worn by the murderer—this was damning evidence.

Sally knew it was over. She stared down at that handkerchief and fought hard against the tears welling in her eyes. The white linen had a spot of her blood on it from the day they first met, when he had gently reached out to wipe at her skin. There were scratches on his own hand from the rose bush. That push-pull sensation was stronger than ever, but there was far less pull this time. She could only stand there under his piercing gaze and shake her head helplessly as she leaned even closer.

Gary sighed unhappily. He was struggling against two competing desires—to hug Sally or to shake her by the shoulders. As a result, his tone was bitter as he said, “You better get yourselves a damn good lawyer, and don’t even think about leaving town.” Just before rounding a corner in the pathway, he turned back and shouted, “And what was in that syrup?”

Sally rushed home after that. She should have gone to check on Gillian upstairs, but she was not feeling especially charitable toward her sister, no matter how much she loved her. She glanced around her own room for something—anything—to distract her.

As fate (or more likely, her daughters) would have it, a small, rectangular object caught her eye. She saw a faded but familiar journal lying on her bed. As she picked it up, it opened to a page near the middle. Childlike cursive stared back at her, and she read the words on the page with a growing sense of uneasiness.

He can flip pancakes in the air.

He can ride a pony backwards.

He will hear my call a mile away.

He will know my favorite tune.

He’ll be marvelously kind.

He’ll have one green eye and one blue eye.

His favorite shape is a star.

On the corresponding page, she saw the dried remains of white rose petals. It was a spell, the one she had worked when she was a child to prevent herself from ever falling in love. She shut it with a snap and fell into a habitual and all-consuming denial that she had begun to call home for many, many years.

It was impossible. It was just a coincidence. It didn’t mean anything. Maybe if she went outside and played with her daughters, she’d forget everything that was wrong in their lives. Maybe…just maybe…

--

Gary spent the next day holed up in his room. As he sat at the small table in his room, surrounded by a scattered, disorganized collection of case notes and photographs, he wondered how much longer he could dodge the calls from his office. He had actually missed a few calls from June while he was at the Owens house (that excuse hadn’t been a complete lie, after all), and she was demanding his expense reports.

“How much longer are you going to stay there?” she had asked when he’d actually called back.

“A few more days.”

In the brief silence that followed, he could hear June’s dissatisfaction from hundreds of miles away. “Payroll isn’t too keen on it. This office isn’t made of money, and they’re getting twitchy about closing the case. I might even think you met someone and are planning to run away.”

He was deathly quiet after that.

“Gary,” she prompted.

“Yeah?”

“You’ve been on the force twenty years. Don’t risk it all unless it’s your dream girl.”

“I know, June,” he said, but at the silence that followed, he suspected she had already hung up.

His stomach growled, and he realized peanut butter sandwiches just weren’t going to cut it for dinner.

Sally, meanwhile, was pacing in her bedroom. Antonia and Kylie were watching an old tape of Laurel and Hardy on the VCR in their room, and she could hear their laughter through the thin walls of the house. She wasn’t a nail biter, typically, but since yesterday, she had managed to chew hers down to the quick. It was too much. She felt like she was just sitting there, waiting for the axe to drop on their necks. There was a dark cloud over the house that she could only ascribe to James Angelov. Ultimately, he was responsible for the whole mess, and she feared he wasn’t done with them yet. He had sent a clear message the night her aunts had left, and it was clear he was certainly not finished with Gillian.

“Gilly, you awake?” she asked, having stomped her way up the stairs. She hadn’t really spoken more than two words to her sister since yesterday. Today, Gilly had holed herself up in her room anyway. She heard a soft grunt from the corner and figured that was response enough. “I’ll be right back. Keep an eye on the girls, okay?”

Gilly shot up in bed at that, but her gaze was bleary and unfocused. Even in the darkness, Sally could see her sister was unwell. It tugged at her conscience, but she did her best to ignore it for the time being. She’d fix her aunt Jet’s famous fever cure when she got back. If that didn’t work, she’d explore their book for a possible ward against possession.

“Where are you going?” Gilly croaked.

“I’m doing the right thing, for once.”

“No! You are not going to tell him what happened,” she protested.

Sally shook her head. “You know, it’s funny, because the moment that man walked into the house, that’s all I seem to want to do.”

“What are you going to do, get down on your knees and beg for mercy?”

“You want me to be true to myself?” she shot back in response. “Then, watch this.”

With that, Sally sent a rush of magic around her, extinguishing the lamps in Gilly’s room one by one as she bolted down the stairs. She whispered a word of protection around her daughters’ bedroom door as she passed it, and in moments, she was outside and on her way into town. Gillian sent that unspoken call towards her, a cry for help, but Sally ignored it. She was tired, so very, very tired of putting Gillian’s needs above her own.

The sun was already setting, but she knew the path by heart. The lights of town were a beacon that drew her on, faster and faster, until she was running down main street with her goal directly in front of her.

“It was Jimmy’s ring.”

Gary turned and caught sight of Sally as she ran towards him. He’d felt her presence moments prior but had ignored it until she had spoken to him.

“Oh, really?” he said, his tone dry and sarcastic. He didn’t stop walking and only turned over his shoulder to speak to her as she followed him.

“I know you knew that, but I needed to tell you.”

“Well, I was serious the other day. You best get yourself a lawyer before you talk to me.”

“I don’t want a lawyer,” she said, finally causing him to stop in his tracks.

Gary turned towards her, and his face was full of resignation. “Alright,” he said with a sigh, gesturing towards the door to his room.

Sally hated the look on his face. She didn’t want that disappointment, that fear and sadness directed at her, and she was glad of the excuse to walk ahead of him. But she had to endure it once they got to his room. Sally was momentarily distracted by the chaos she discovered there.

“Excuse the mess,” he said, rushing around to create smaller piles of papers, pictures, and reports in various places throughout the room. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

She reached out on impulse and looked at a photograph of a younger Jimmy. He was standing among a group of young men at a bar with a pretty woman on his arm. She was blonde and buxom. She wondered if this woman was another victim. Maybe Gary had only told them about one young woman. He reached out to retrieve the photo and muttered something else as he gathered other pictures into his hands. He froze when she saw her letter lying there on the bed. He had stopped carrying it in his coat pocket for fear that she would see it again. But here she was, standing in his room and gazing down at her own letter as though it were a red stain on the pristine coverlet.

Sally lifted the envelope, noting its somewhat faded and smudged appearance. The letter inside was in even worse shape. It looked as though it had been folded a hundred different times. The ink was faded and almost invisible in some spots.

“How many times did you read this?” she asked him.

His expression was suddenly cautious as he rounded the bed and removed his coat. “A few,” he said. “I have to study all the evidence.”

Sally stared at him with her mouth slightly open. Confused was hardly a sufficient word to describe how she was feeling.

Gary busied himself with his miniature tape recorder. He asked her to sit down and said, into the recorder, “This is the testimony of Sally Owens. March 8^th, 1998.”

Chapter Text

It took her several stunned moments to realize he had asked her to sit down again. She stepped past him and complied with his request, but her eyes were fixed on the letter in her hands. She could only think to describe its state as “well-loved,” which sent a strange thrill into the pit of her stomach.

“Where is James Angelov?” Gary asked, gazing at the woman in front of him and feeling as though she had never been a stranger to him.  He saw the look of resignation clear as day on her face.

“I think he’s in the spirit world,” she said, in a matter-of-fact tone.

“You think he’s dead?” he tried to clarify.

“No, I think he’s haunting us.” It was said in such an off-handed manner that he almost laughed aloud. Except she lifted the wrinkled and faded letter in front of him with fresh determination. “What evidence did you get from reading my letter?”

“Did you or your sister kill James Angelov?” he insisted, trying to maintain the upper hand.

She paused, her expression softening. “Gillian didn’t kill anybody.”

“Gillian didn’t,” he said, realizing she was giving him another non-answer. “Gillian didn’t, but you did. Is that right? Did you?” he demanded. And his voice deepened as he added, “Sally…did you?”

She rose to her feet, unable to withstand the way his eyes were looking at her with something strangely familiar shining through them. She couldn’t handle the delicate almost tender way he had said her name, either.

“What if I told you I did?” she said. She was glad of the distance between them. “What would you do? Would you—would you send me to jail for the rest of my life all because the world was short a man like Jimmy Angelov?”

Gary shook his head. “It’s not for you or me to decide how he should be punished.” He stood and walked towards her. The distance was gone. He was standing directly in front of her with his head bent so they were eye-level—a posture he had used several times with her before. It had always served to both unnerve and comfort her.

His eyes traveled across her face and landed on her lips for a second too long. Sally was trembling, but she held herself as still as possible.

“He has to be held accountable,” he said at last, trying to maintain his composure.

“Well, he has been punished.”

He leaned impossibly closer, as if trying to decipher the full truth from her face. “He has?” When she said nothing—just stared back at him with those incredible dark eyes, the determined chin slightly hidden by a curtain of long hair—he knew the answer. He huffed a frustrated sigh as he turned away to hit the stop button on the voice recorder. “You really should get a lawyer’s advice before we go any further.”

Sally swallowed when he stood in front of her again.

His eyes were so earnest as he spoke once more, soft and low and sweet. “I know you’re in some kind of trouble. If you’ll trust me and tell me everything you know, I promise you, I will do everything I can to keep you from harm’s way.”

He is marvelously kind. The thought entered her mind quite without prompting.

The longer they gazed at one another, the less Gary felt like he could breathe. Sally smiled the tiniest smile as her eyes traveled down to his lips, and he wondered if she felt it, too—that inextricable thing pulling them together. For a moment, he forgot who he was. He was just Gary, no badge or gun or title. And she was the girl he had been dreaming of.

The air between them seemed to spark to life the longer they stared at one another. It was a slow burn at first, but the moment he felt her leaning slightly towards him, he lost all control. Suddenly, he had bridged that small gap between them and captured her lips with his own. He expected a moment of hesitation, or even to feel her palms collide with his chest to push him away in revulsion. Instead, it was like her body responded at the precise moment his touched hers.

Sally suddenly felt alive for the first time in years. She was aware of every single point of contact between them. He was kissing her passionately while his arms were wrapped completely around her body. She felt his quick intake of breath as he stepped forward and pressed her flat against the nearest wall. She went willingly in his arms, circling her own around his neck to pull him impossibly closer. His hand rested at the very top of her camisole, and his eyes traveled to follow it as if to assure himself he was touching actual flesh and not just a fantasy. That moment of hesitation finally snapped Sally out of it.

“I can’t,” she said, repeating it over and over while she gripped the front of his shirt. She felt like she had to prevent herself from launching forward again—because she wanted more.

“I can’t either,” he said softly, dropping his head so he didn’t have to look at her. He felt like he was going to combust if she gave him the slightest hint that it was okay to proceed. But he knew it wasn’t. It would never be okay.

Sally stared at his dark wavy hair within reach of her hands. The more they paused for breath, the more she inhaled a familiar scent. It was aloe and eucalyptus. He had used the shampoo she had suggested, one of her own concoctions. In the passing of a breath, her hands were on the side of his face, and she found herself ducking forward to catch his lips again. He was lost all over again. Without warning, she was being lifted off her feet and set down onto the bed. His hand found its way under the hem of her shirt, and she let out a soft grunt and shuddered. He wondered, in the nebulous, rational part of his brain that barely existed, if she was ticklish. He pulled back to gaze down at her. Sally’s long, wavy hair was spread out against piles of case notes and important papers. She was disheveled and panting beneath him, and she had never looked more beautiful.

“One green eye, one blue,” she said softly, almost to herself. Her brow suddenly furrowed, and she allowed herself one more moment to examine him, to place her hand on the side of his neck where she could feel the heat radiating from his skin. Her brain began to make tiny, infinitesimal check marks next to a list. She had to bite back a sob when the realization hit her fully in the chest.

“I’m sorry, I can’t,” she repeated again, and it took all of her determination to pull herself free of his arms.

He didn’t fight her. Why would he? No matter how much he longed for her, to force anything to happen would be dishonorable. He wanted to call after her, but she was already gone. He felt her absence keenly, not just because he’d experienced passion unlike anything with a woman before, but because she had felt so undeniably right in his arms. Their stormy kisses had seemed like a natural progression of this strange attraction constantly tugging them closer and closer since that first day. His eyes drifted to her letter where it lay on the table.

Damn that bastard, Jimmy Angelov.

It wouldn’t have been extremely out of the ordinary for such a thought to cross his mind. He’d spent the better part of three years tailing the sleazy young man who always found a way to weasel himself out of distasteful situations and the consequences of his own actions. Gary had just needed one final piece to tie Jimmy to the deaths of two—possibly three—young women. Presumably, he’d gotten that when he found Jimmy’s ring. Except, now he didn’t have the criminal to press charges against. So, the thought alone wasn’t unusual. Except, he realized it was not his own inner voice that had spoken, but a soft, feminine one. It was…Sally’s.

Just as suddenly, he felt a sick dread in the pit of his stomach. Something was very, very wrong. He had his coat, gun, and badge, and the keys were in the ignition of his rental car before he truly knew where he was going in such a hurry. The tires squealed as he peeled away from the curb in his haste. He pulled into the Owens’ driveway and was out the door before he’d fully put the car in park. Something was pulling him faster and faster, some sense that he was needed like never before.

Antonia and Kylie were in shambles when he entered the home. He couldn’t understand a word they were saying around their sobs.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said soothingly as the two of them rushed forward to embrace him tightly. “I’m here now. I’ll take care of things.”

They tugged on his arms and wrapped their small arms around his neck. It took every ounce of willpower to push them back and tell them to wait where it was safe. He ran up three flights of stairs in the blink of an eye. He saw Sally standing in the attic, paralyzed with fear. Suddenly, he had his gun drawn and was bracing Sally’s back before fully recognizing the danger—he just knew it was there.

Sally jolted at the sight and feel of him standing behind her. She almost laughed when she saw his gun. He had no idea what little use that sort of weapon would be. Nevertheless, his presence brought her a small ounce of comfort. Gary and Sally watched, with growing revulsion and dismay, as Gilly’s body was lifted off the bed several times, her back arching painfully as if something was trying to push its way through her chest. It wasn’t something but someone, rather. He felt like he was seeing double for a moment until a second figure suddenly pulled itself away from Gilly’s panting and limp form on the bed. There, with an all too familiar sneer on his face, sat the mostly translucent figure of James L. Angelov.

“Officer Hallet,” Jimmy said. “Just looking at you makes me homesick.”

Gary thought he was dreaming. Maybe the whole damn thing had started the moment he and Sally kissed, and this was just some sick extension of a fantasy. Jimmy stood to his feet and cracked his neck, like he was preparing himself for a fight. Gary could see the outline of large objects through the man in front of him. His brain was trying valiantly to find a rational explanation, but he could only stare in horror. Behind him, Sally was making careful progress across the floor toward Gilly. Gary wanted to turn around and demand to know what was going on, but he and Jimmy were currently locked in a silent battle of wills. He knew it was important to keep the scoundrel—or ghost, or hallucination, whatever he was—focused on himself.

It was a good thing Jimmy couldn’t ever seem to keep his mouth shut. “What’s wrong?” He asked the officer with mock sympathy. His shone with some otherworldly light, yet there was a familiar glint of mischief as he added, “Cat got your tongue?”

Gary had no appropriate response. He still thought he was dreaming.

Jimmy didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he stretched his pale, translucent hand towards Gary’s chest and reached inside. Sally, who could only watch helplessly from the corner of the room at Gilly’s bedside, suddenly doubled over as a vise like grip clutched around her heart. Gary screamed and fell to his knees as he felt his chest burning with unbelievable pain. Even more horrific was the sight of the ghostly hand disappearing inside his chest cavity as if he were made of tissue paper and not flesh, bone, and blood. Gary felt as though he was on fire from the inside out. The more Jimmy clenched his fist, the more the flames spread in and around his heart.

In a moment of time-slowing clarity, Gary quickly realized that this was not the way he wished to die. His vision was beginning to blur, but he was suddenly furious. This was not it. He was not going to die, and damn Jimmy if the scoundrel thought he could drag the officer down to hell with him. He yelled with all his might. Jimmy suddenly sprang back with a look of confusion and pain. His pale, ghostly hand was now marked with a seeping wound—in the shape of a star. Gary glanced at the floor and saw his badge lying there, still smoking from where it had seared Jimmy’s palm.

It’s just a star. It can’t stop criminals in their tracks. But it has power because you believe it does. Sally’s words floated back into his mind. He grabbed his badge and held it toward Jimmy’s pale form. The man writhed in sudden pain, his body contorting in a horrific manner. Jimmy’s image wavered before it disintegrated into smoke and flew out the nearest window in a sudden rush of wind.

Sally was still desperately trying to catch her breath as she gazed at Gary from across the room. She wanted to crawl towards him, to pull him into her arms again and assure herself he was okay—but she had Gilly to think about, pale and shivering on the bed beside her. She had her daughters downstairs, terrified and confused. She had a great many things to take care of before she could even begin to think about the handsome officer on the floor.

Gary remained where he was uncertain that he’d be able to walk straight for a few minutes until his chest stopped hurting and his head quit spinning like a top. Sally, on the other hand, had already wrapped Gilly tightly in a blanket and wiped at her dewy forehead. In moments, she was on her feet and stumbling towards the stairs.

Gary caught her hand as she passed him. “Someday you’ll have to explain all of this to me.”

She nodded. Instead of offering any sort of reassurance, she just asked, “Wait for me?”

“Yeah.”

She didn’t have to tell him where. She would know where to find him. Sally felt a sting of tears as she rushed downstairs to check on her daughters. There was an impending sense of doom knowing she would have to talk to him eventually. She would have to tell him everything—the full and complete truth with no interruptions or distractions.

After getting her daughters settled in their beds with cups of Aunt Jet’s best tonic and making sure Gilly was still conscious, she finally made her way outside. She followed that small tug in the center of her chest that led her straight to him. He was sitting under the rose trellis. And damnit if he didn’t look gorgeous in the setting sun bouncing off of the ocean water. His slightly mismatched eyes were in stark contrast with his ruddy, sun-worn features.

“What was that, Sally?” he demanded, the moment she appeared. He stammered a few more questions and gestured to the attic windows before settling on, “Is he gone?”

Sally crossed her arms but couldn’t meet his gaze. “You killed his spirit, but I’m the one who took his life.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you everything you need to know.” She started to walk away from him. “I’ll tell you how I did it, where I buried him, what I did it with, how I—”

Gary surged to his feet and followed. “Now, hold on just a goddamn second.” He moved to block her path. “I took an oath to uphold the law. I thought I came in here to bring in the bad guy, ‘cause generally, that’s what I do.”

As he stared into her downcast face, his anger seethed through him as he tried to make sense of everything that had just happened. His chest still ached where Jimmy’s fist had dislodged itself half an hour prior. He hated the blank, almost stern look on her face and the fact that she couldn’t seem to meet his gaze. She was holding herself back. But he couldn’t maintain even the slightest façade of professional distance anymore, not after their moment at the inn.

Sally finally glanced up when Gary took a step towards her.

“You asked me how many times I read your letter,” he said. He would regret saying what was to come, but he couldn’t stop himself. “I must have read it a thousand times. I know now that it was your letter more than anything else that brought me here. It was you.” He swallowed, waiting for a sign from Sally and receiving none. “And I’m all mixed up about that.”

Sally’s eyes welled with tears at the heartfelt look on his face. The inevitable moment had finally arrived. She spoke haltingly and with great effort. “The reason that you’re here and you don’t know why is because…I sent for you.” She couldn’t stand to watch his face as she told him what she had finally realized the moment they had kissed. It seemed so obvious now, of course. But she had been in the midst of it before she realized it had begun. She breathed deeply and continued. “When I was a little girl, I worked a spell so I would never fall in love. I asked for qualities in a man that I knew couldn’t possibly exist.”

Gary swallowed as fear gripped at his chest. It was a sharper pain than before. “One green eye…one blue?”

Sally nodded, and he couldn’t resist reaching out and tucking a strand of her hair behind one ear. It was something he’d wanted to do for a long time. He felt a need to touch her, to reassure himself she was real and not just a figment of his long-cherished imagination.

“But you do. You do exist,” Sally said, failing to fight back the tears that were now streaming down her face.

As the full truth dawned on him, he felt like his heart was being squeezed again. He almost wanted to look down and see if she had taken it in her hand this time. “You’re saying what I’m feeling is just…one of your spells?”

“It’s not real.” Her voice sounded hollow. She wanted him so badly that it hurt, but she crossed her arms and continued. “If you stayed, I wouldn’t know if it was because of the spell, and you wouldn’t know if it was because I didn’t want to go to prison.”

He needed a moment to process her words. With an attempt at humor, he said, “Well, all relationships have problems, you know.”

She laughed. For a moment, they were normal. It was a brief sensation that crumbled the moment she caught the frown on Gary’s face.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” she said, with that same annoying intuition.

He watched her closely. But there was no mistaking her steady, unwavering gaze. The only thing that gave him pause was the shimmering remnant of a tear on her left cheek. He wanted to reach out and swipe it away, to assure her everything would work itself out. Gary knew it wouldn’t, not knowing this truth.

He gave her a half-hearted attempt at a smile, which she didn’t bother to return. “Well, why don’t you do what you do, and…I’ll do what I do, and we’ll see where we end up?”

Sally nodded and tried to look like she meant it. Come back. Hold me. Don’t go, she wanted to shout after him as he walked away.

He surprised her when he turned back. “Curses only have power if you believe in them, and I don’t.” He drank in the sight of her profile one last time and decided to leave her with a piece of his own truth. “I wished for you, too, you know.”

Sally’s chin dropped to her chest as she bit back a sob. She couldn’t watch him go without feeling like she would shatter into a thousand pieces.

Chapter Text

“Still need those expense reports, Gary,” June said as her only form of greeting when he returned to work the next afternoon.

He wasn’t supposed to be there, and his other coworkers watched him with a touch of concern as he slumped into his chair to begin filling out paperwork.

“Thought your vacation wasn’t finished for another day?” Garcia said, sidling up to his desk.

“Wasn’t a vacation,” Gary retorted. As he showed no signs of wishing to speak again, his cohort slowly walked away without another word.

He had been agonizing about his decision since the moment he and Sally had parted ways. Jimmy’s ring was burning a hole in his pocket. He suddenly recalled the instance in Sally’s family attic—the translucent figure stalking him around the room. If he thought about it long enough, he could start to feel those icy fingers clutching around his heart, squeezing, squeezing…

He shook his head and decided he’d do the damn expense reports to get June off of his back, if nothing else. It took him three more days to first write a draft of his official case report, and then two more days to re-read it repeatedly. He was probably the only person who could see the glaring gaps in his description of events or the outright lie regarding James L. Angelov’s actual manner of death, but the end result was acceptable, according to his boss.

Gary—an honorable man to the core—was far from sanguine, however. It didn’t help that he was plagued with dreams since arriving home in Tucson. Sometimes, he was forced to relive his final encounter with Jimmy’s ghost. Other times, his dreams were fast-paced and full of frenzied, unfamiliar activity so that he would awaken feeling more tired than ever before. He’d be left with vague images—Sally or Gillian’s faces, or sometimes just their voices, at times scared and other times angry. One night he had a vivid recollection of women standing in a circle holding hands, and in another, he spent what felt like the entire night trying to rid his apartment of a frog infestation.

He’d often recall his moments with Sally at the bed and breakfast. Sometimes his mind would fill in the gaps for him by letting him experience more and more kisses from Sally, or sometimes even going all the way with her. But it was always hazy and never fully, completely satisfying. He was forever left wanting, with a deep, aching loneliness when he would wake.

It wasn’t until a month later, when the case was officially declared closed, that he contacted Sally. He was obligated to inform her of what he had done to protect her and her family. Ultimately, it was the only explanation that would make any sense in the real world, where magic didn’t actually exist. He used to believe that once a criminal was killed, he stayed dead. But now, he didn’t know what to believe. His entire worldview had shifted.

So, he composed a brief form letter and mailed it off without any expectations.

Eventually, he did receive a reply. Or rather, a summons.

--

“This one,” Gilly said, holding up a form-fitting dress.

“The one with the roses?” Sally snorted. “Don’t you think that’s a little on the nose?”

“Come on, Sal!” Gilly protested. “You will look amazing. And you’ll wear your hair half up and down. Oh, and you’ll let me do your makeup!”

Sally pinched her lips but nodded her head. She had no reason to protest. And she’d keep letting Gilly get her way—for a while, at least, because she was so damn thankful her sister was still alive. Her initial hesitation was now replaced with full-blown fear, anxiety, and excitement combined into one. She knew precisely when he’d arrive, in that same nebulous sense of always knowing when he was near. That sensation was heightened now. If she closed her eyes, she could just picture him walking through security at the airport. He’d be crossing the long bridge to their island in less than an hour. Gilly and the girls helped distract her, but she couldn’t ignore the way her own heart threatened to beat its way out of her chest the closer he got.

“He’s here!” Kylie cried, pointing to an unfamiliar rental car pulling into the driveway.

“I think we should go inside and fix some tea for him. Don’t you?” Aunt Jet suggested, knowing the two adults would want a moment of privacy (which was rare at the Owens household as everyone was always in everyone else’s business).

“He drinks coffee, not tea,” Aunt Frances insisted.

“How do you know that?” Antonia demanded, as she was being ushered inside along with her sister.

Jet rolled her eyes. “Your aunt Frances thinks she knows what every man wants. And I say it’s tea.”

“Coffee.”

“Tea!”

“It’s coffee, I tell you!”

“Alright, that’s enough,” Gillian interjected, acting like mother hen as she guided everyone inside. And just in time, as Gary had exited his car at last.

Sally waited at the edge of the wooded part of their property. She didn’t step out of the tree line yet, wondering if he could locate her on his own. Sure enough, Gary turned away from the house and made a bee-line towards her, quite without knowing why or how he was drawn to that particular cluster of underbrush.

“Hi,” Sally said, stepping out to view him properly.

“Hi,” Gary breathed, and he felt like it was the first time he could take a full breath of air in weeks. The very sight of her was enough to set every nerve ending on fire. He had to touch her, just to assure himself she was real, and he wasn’t dreaming.

Sally felt the same way. Her hand reached out and clutched at his shirt sleeve tightly. Gary’s eyes followed from that singular point of contact, up her arm, and finally to her face, where she was gazing at him with the most serene expression of contentment.

At last, she seemed to say, with her eyes.

Yes, his smile replied. Finally.

They stared at each other as he slowly pulled her into his arms. This kiss was less fiery than their first, but it was no less soulful in its effect. It was a lingering, searching sort of kiss that left them both a tad breathless. Gary couldn’t help feeling he’d finally stepped out of the horrors of the last few months and into a damn romance novel. When they finally parted to look at each other, there wasn’t much that needed to be said.

“You staying for dinner?” Sally asked as he wrapped his arm around her while they walked.

“Mm-hmm,” he said. “Just so long as there’s no homemade syrup.”

Sally laughed, for the first time in what felt like forever. “Gilly has sworn off cooking for a while. And men.”

Gary just nodded his head. Their alone time was effectively over, for the time being, as they were accosted by two excitable young girls as soon as they stepped onto the porch.

“I made biscuits!” Antonia cried happily.

Gary just smiled and wiped at a smudge of flour on the young girl’s cheek as Kylie asked him six different questions in rapid succession.

--

“So, you actually retired? Aren’t you kind of young for that?” Sally asked, bemused.

Gary laughed. “I’m nearer to fifty than I’d care to admit. But I didn’t imagine I’d stay a cop much longer anyway. Been thinking about stopping for a long time now.”

Sally propped herself up on her elbows to stared down at him. He was lying on the quilt beside her with a serene expression on his face. The sun overhead made funny shaped shadows dance across his body. It was a little chilly for a picnic, but it was the only way they could get a little solitude. She’d taken him to her favorite spot at the far edge of their property where no one would think to look for them. Anywhere they went in town, they were always accosted by the townspeople who couldn’t resist any opportunity to gather gossip about his return.  

“What are you going to do now?” Sally asked, fighting a small grip of fear in the pit of her stomach. She worried he might get bored of their mostly quiet life on the island. Though, really…being part of the Owens brood wasn’t exactly dull.

He shrugged his shoulder and eyed her carefully. “Thought I might stay for a while.”

Sally nodded her head. “There are some things around the house that need fixing.”

He smirked. “You mean you can’t…?” He waved a hand in the air as though he were conjuring something.

“There are some things that can’t be fixed with magic. More often than not, it comes down to plain old elbow grease and grit. And maybe a hammer.”

Gary grunted. He still had quite a bit he needed to learn about the craft. And they had plenty they wanted to learn about each other, too. They had promised they wouldn’t rush into anything, though it had only taken a week for them to fall into bed together. The draw between them had been too strong to resist. And that first time had been just as passionate and exhilarating as he had hoped. But it had also been real and awkward at times, just as with any first time.

The two of them watched each other for a moment, not needing to say much else. This silent communication often drove Gillian crazy since she wasn’t privy to their conversation, but even she couldn’t stay angry at them for too long. She recognized true love when she saw it in others. Sometimes it startled Gary and Sally just how much love existed already, in such a seemingly short amount of time. But it was there, growing each day as they began to settle into each other’s lives with relative ease, and each year as time continued to march on.

There are some things I know for certain: always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder, keep rosemary by your garden gate, plant lavender for luck…and fall in love whenever you can.