Page 2 of Haunted Eclipse
“What happened?” I couldn’t imagine what had caught fire. I was always cautious with the gas range, and I mostly used battery operated candles, given Miss P.’s curiosity about anything that looked like fire. Thank gods, the firemen had rescued my cat. Even better, she wasn’t hurt. My twenty pound calico Maine Coon, Miss Prance-a-Lot, or Miss P. for short, was in my car, curled up asleep in the back seat.
But everything else…it was all gone.
“We aren’t entirely sure,” he said. “But we have some suspicions.”
“It’s been one hell of a day,” I said, shivering in the November evening. Thanksgiving was in two days, and I was supposed to head to Midnight Point tomorrow morning, to stay with my aunt and hang with my best friend and her family. It looked like I might be imposing for a bit longer than that.
“I think you’re holding up remarkably well,” the fire marshal said.
I shrugged. “Not only did I lose my house, but I was fired today…or as they called it,laid off. The kicker is, I was doing my job toowell. It’s been a total bust of a day.” Exhaustion and nerves were taking their toll. I was starting to babble.
“I’m so sorry, Ms. Tripwater. We think some idiot was playing with fireworks and launched one into a pile of dry leaves beneath your oak over there. Given it’s been dry for a few days, and the strong winds that have been whipping through, we’repretty sure a spark caught hold,” the fire marshal said. “We found the remains of wrappers on the property.”
The oak next to the remains of my house was charred, fire streaking a black, sooty line up its trunk. The tree was beautiful, hovering over my house, provide shade during the summer. Now, half the tree was gone, as well as my entire home.
Weak in the knees, I looked for someplace to sit down. A bench in my rose garden had survived, so I settled down on it. It was covered with ash from the heavy smoke that still billowed out of my house, but I didn’t care. So what if the one outfit I had to my name was covered with ash and soot?
“Is there someone you need to call? Do you have anywhere to go?” The fire marshal followed me, a concerned look on his face.
I thought about it. I had a few friends in town, but since Dan had died, a lot of our friends had drifted off. They weren’t part of the Otherkin community, given Dan was mostly human. He had a little witchblood in him, but it was diluted. He wasn’t sure how far back his magical heritage had been, given his father had very little power, and beyond that, nobody knew. His family had been separated by circumstance and time.
Our friends weren’t sure how to act around me, now that I was alone. In the past two years since Dan had died, I’d mostly stayed in touch with people from my home town. I could count on one hand the number of people I felt comfortable hanging out with in Seattle.
“I’ll take Miss P. and check in at a hotel. I’m not sure what to do next.” I was numb and exhausted.
“Maisy—that’s correct, isn’t it?” the fire marshal asked.
“Right. Maisy Tripwater.” I scooted over, offering him a seat next to me, but he shook his head.
“We’ll be here for another couple of hours, making sure all the flames are fully extinguished. I suggest you and your cat gofind a hotel. There’s nothing you can do here until tomorrow, and you really should try to get some rest,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said, bleakly. “Thank you so much for saving her. Losing Miss P. would have been more than I could handle.” A sob caught in my throat and I let out a shaky sigh.
“I’m glad we could at least do that. She’s gorgeous,” the fire marshal said. “She may need a bath—there’s a little soot on her, but the medics checked her out and she doesn’t have any smoke damage. She’s breathing fine.”
“When will I know what started the fire? I need to call my insurance company,” I asked.
“We’ll know more tomorrow. We’ll follow through with a complete inspection and get you our official findings. You should be able to get in here tomorrow to start hunting for anything that you might be able to salvage, although I recommend caution. Not much will be left standing and you can expect to find a lot of metal shards, nails, broken glass in the debris. Meanwhile, there’s not much else for you to do here.”
“I’ll let you know where I’m staying.”
We exchanged contact info, then I headed back to my car. Miss P. was still asleep in the back seat. I breathed a sigh of relief. She was my best friend, of the four-legged variety. She was my world, actually. I’d adopted her a year ago, a year after I’d lost Dan. My heart caught in my throat when I thought about how devastated I’d be if she died.
I headed toward the nearest hotel. I managed to keep it together until I’d checked in and was shown to my room. When I told the hotel what had happened, they found me a robe and a pair of slippers. I took a shower and ordered some tuna for Miss P. and a sandwich for me. After we ate and I stretched out on the bed, I finally let go and cried for an hour straight, with Miss P. snuggling against me.
Midnight Point,Washington, was a shadow town. With the feel of a small town, it offered a number of options comparable with those of a bigger city.
Shadow towns were small towns scattered throughout the country where magic ran rife, and the veils between the worlds were thin. There were a number in Western Washington: Moonshadow Bay, Terameth Lake, Whisper Hollow, and Cresent Falls.
A haven for artists and Otherkin of all kinds, Midnight Point was on an island directly off the coast of Port Townsend. The ferry, on its way from Port Townsend to Whidbey Island, stopped at the docks several times each day. A lot happened here, magically speaking. Some good. Some bad. Some downright dangerous and weird.
As I sat in my shop, waiting for my first client, I thought about my business. I knew that I’d get plenty of readings, and probably a few investigations, given the nature of the town. But I wandered how many love matches I’d manage to engineer. I started to tidy up my desk—which was already clean—when the door opened.
Crystal stood there, bag in one hand, coffee in the other. “I’m on my break. I thought you’d like more coffee,” she said, handing me the bag as she put the coffee cup on the desk.
I peeked inside to find a maple bar and several chocolate chip cookies. “These smell incredible.” I slid them out of the bag and placed them on a napkin.
“I thought you’d like them.” She glanced around. “Any sign of life so far?”
