Chapter 1
I stepped out of the sheriff’s station and into the pine-scented air. That glorious smell was one of the things I loved most about living in the Northwoods. After this morning’s quick, light rain shower, the smell had grown stronger and now encircled me like a comforting hug. Nice.
“Work your magic,” I told my trees. “And share a little of it with everyone else around here, please.”
Visitors were a requirement for a village that relied on tourism for its survival. We knew that and always welcomed the tourists with enthusiasm. This year, however, the crowds were larger, louder, and more intense than ever before. Which was making the village residents unusually crabby. And the season was only three weeks old. Goddess help us.
As I veered left at the intersection of the station’s sidewalk and the Fairy Path, I glanced upward, hoping for a response from the trees. The tops swayed softly, but I couldn’t hear their whispers. I swallowed hard then tried to force a yawn to unclog my ears. Something had been going on with them for a couple of weeks. Maybe I had allergies. I should stop at Unity for a checkup.
A few seconds later, a pinecone dropped from above and landed inches in front of me on the wood plank pathway. My West Highland White Terrier, Meeka, who was snuffling around the forest floor instead of walking on the path with me, let out a yelp when another tree bomb caught the tip of her tail.
“Not funny,” I told the pines.
An immediate reply came in the form of a loud caw-caw-caw. A pair of beautiful black birds were perched high above us. I might not be able to hear my trees, but I sure heard those crows. Were they laughing at us? One of them dropped a third pinecone that nearly landed on Meeka’s head, cawed his or her laugh again, and then the two birds flew off in a flapping of wings.
“Knock it off.”
“Jayne? Who are you talking to?”
Startled by the voice, I pulled my attention away from the treetops to find hearth witch Reeva Long coming toward me.
“Birds.” I pointed skyward. “They’re bombing us with pinecones. One landed on Meeka. Just her tail, but still . . .”
“Ah, yes. The pranksters are quite active this morning.” Meeka darted over to her, so Reeva bent and gave my K-9 a comforting ear scratch after her traumatic encounter.
“When did this start?” I hadn’t heard about crow problems yesterday. “And what do you mean by active? Just dropping pinecones?”
“I noticed them yesterday afternoon.”
That explained it. My shift ended at twelve thirty.
Reeva continued, “They’re not only dropping pinecones. They’re also swooping at people and leaving messes everywhere. I understand it’s worst in the commons area.”
That’s where I was headed. What was I supposed to do about pesky birds?
“How is Rosalyn holding up?” Reeva asked.
“Her hair is frizzy. If you know my sister, you’ll recognize that as a sure sign she’s in this deep. She’s also worn the same outfit for three straight days, and I’m pretty sure she’s running purely on caffeine.”
Reeva chuckled softly. “I remember being the same way when I opened my catering business. Getting the first event under my belt made a huge difference, as this one will for her.”
When Rosalyn lost her job last August, she moped around the house for a couple of weeks, then one day started slowly filling a wall in her bedroom with sticky notes, each one an idea for a possible new career path. Finally, she decided she wanted to open an event planning business. She tested the idea by putting together a birthday party for seven-year-old villagers Peony Flowers and Prim Brittell. It was a huge success. The wedding this weekend was Pine Time Parties’ first official event and would, according to my sister, “determine if I’ll be a massive success or if I should cut my nails short and be Tripp’s dish washer.” Rosalyn hated washing dishes. She’d lasted one day as our Pine Time Bed-and-Breakfast kitchen assistant.
“Where are you going?” I asked Reeva, since she was walking away from her shop, Hearth & Cauldron.
“To Pine Time. I want to see how much table space I have to work with and make a plan for how to lay out the buffet. My contract states that changes to the menu can be made up to ten days before the event.” She rubbed her hands together gleefully. “We’re two days out, so I can start working on the fun part.”
Reeva decided at the end of last season that leading cooking classes for tourists who were really only looking for something to do on vacation wasn’t as satisfying as she’d hoped it would be. When Rosalyn announced she needed a caterer for her events, Reeva saw it as the perfect time to revive the career she’d loved so much.
“Do me a favor?” I asked as we continued in our respective directions. “Talk to Rosalyn about self-care. She could really use a shower.”
Reeva burst out laughing. “I may be old enough to be your mother, but I will not parent your sister. Have a blessed day, Deputy.”
As we did every morning around this time, Meeka and I passed by The Twisty Skein, Hearth & Cauldron, Ivy’s Boutique, and finally Skål, the village’s newest restaurant, owned and operated by Reeva’s boyfriend, Jozef Lykke. Everything seemed to be quiet, in a good way, at those locations. Then we stepped off the Fairy Path and onto the red brick walkway of the village commons. As Reeva had hinted, things were not so quiet here.
Two crew members from village services were sweeping up dirt scattered on the ground around the pointy parts of the Pentacle Garden. At the same time, a team of green witches tended the plants inside the pentacle.
“Heather?” I called out to the woman who normally worked in the village services accounting office. “What’s going on? Why are you here?”
The woman in her early thirties with dusky-purple hair looked up and let out a huge sigh. “We were getting ready to head to work this morning when Mr. Powell sent an urgent group message. He said there were issues all around the village that needed to be addressed before the tourists started showing up. Then he assigned us tasks.”
“Brittells to the rescue,” her husband, Bud, called out sarcastically, a fist raised in the air.
Sweeping up dirt was an urgent task? And why were other people scrubbing the bricks? Then I understood. They were cleaning off bird droppings. Owners of the shops surrounding the garden were scrubbing their porches. Did two crows do all that?
As though in answer, a chorus of caws sounded, drawing my attention to the treetops. There was a flock of fifteen or twenty feathery black beasties up there. A murder of crows. A truly ominous sign in Whispering Pines.
“Is this going on all around the village?” I asked the Brittells.
“That’s what Mr. Powell’s message indicated,” Bud replied.
So that’s what Reeva meant by leaving a mess. “What happened to the garden? The crows didn’t do that, too, did they?”
“Why do you think scarecrows were created?” Dale Woodthorpe, one of the green witches, called out from his position in the closest pentacle point. “Crows cause enormous damage to crops. I’m finding black feathers amongst the wreckage here so can pretty much guarantee the birds did this.”
Heather paused sweeping to ask, “Any idea where they came from?”
“You’re asking me?” I pointed at myself. “I don’t know, the sky?”
“Guess a few showed up yesterday afternoon,” Bud offered. “More have joined them.”
That’s what Reeva had said.
“Something needs to be done,” Dale grumbled. “We should be able to save most of these plants, but if it keeps happening, we’re going to lose the Pentacle Garden this season.”
His tone indicated he expected me to take care of this. What was I supposed to do about birds?
More concerning than the mess was the root cause. During the two years I’d lived here, I’d learned that things like this didn’t happen by accident.
“We could try putting up scarecrows,” I offered, then tried to ease a little of the tension with a fun fact. “Did you know that children were once used to scare away birds? They would stand out in the fields and throw rocks at them.”
“Don’t think we want our kids throwing rocks around the commons,” Heather replied.
“No,” Bud agreed, “but we could let them chase the birds. I know I do all I can to escape when Thistle, Prim, or Hazel come at me.”
Heather gave him a withering, unamused look.
“Thanks for being team players,” I told them, avoiding the topic of how to deal with the flock.
“Happy to help,” Bud said. “It would have taken the regular crew all morning to clean this up.”
While the team continued with their tasks, I stood back and eyed the white marble well at the center of the pentacle. We used to call it the Negativity Well because people would throw their worries, secrets, and gripes down to the bottom for the spring water to purify and wash away to wherever the water went.
Last September, the villagers who had lived here since Whispering Pines’s inception—we called them the Originals—became sick, and plants in the Pentacle Garden started dying for no discernible reason. After more than fifty years of the practice, Briar Barlow, one of the Originals, reasoned that the water supply swirling beneath us had become toxic, and all that nastiness had leached into the soil.
Briar said, “Whispering Pines, the very land we stand on, is fighting back. We need to fix this. You’ll laugh, but I think this is what’s wrong with Effie, Cybil, and me. We’ve been here the longest. It’s taking us with it.”
We decided the pessimism was slowly killing the Pentacle Garden too. So all the villagers and a few tourists encircled The Well, and High Priestess Reeva led us in a midnight blessing.
Did the blessing work, or did we only succeed in stirring up gloom and making things worse? All the negative stuff had to go somewhere. Was that what was wrong with me and some of the other villagers this past winter? It had felt like more than a seasonal depression thing. Was it now affecting this season’s tourists? Should we bless The Well again? Would that help or cause even more problems? I made a mental note to talk with Reeva, Briar, and Morgan about it.
Meeka and I continued our patrol around the commons, staying out of the way of those scrubbing the bricks. I called good morning to Emery as he hosed down The Inn’s front walk and waved at Maeve outside Grapes, Grains, and Grub pub. On the other side of Triple G, we took a left and followed a short pathway through a canopy of trees to Biblichor, the village bookstore.
The irritated owner, India Paige, was using a corn broom to sweep dozens and dozens of pinecones off the path and into the woods. The muttering coming from her with each swoosh of the broom made it sound like she was issuing either a blessing or a curse.
“What happened here?” I asked her.
“Those blasted birds. This is easier to clean up than their droppings but equally annoying. Around one o’clock yesterday afternoon, the crows started swooping down from the trees as my patrons tried to get to the store, or they sat on those overhanging branches and dropped pinecones on their heads. Do you know how sharp pinecones are? I had to have someone from Sundry bring me more bandages and begged them to stop at Shoppe Mystique on their way to grab some of Morgan’s ointment because I used all of mine. I had to walk people through the canopy using an umbrella. This isn’t funny.”
Did I laugh? I sure didn’t mean to if I did.
India continued, “I offered coupons for free coffees at Ye Olde Bean Grinder to those who got injured. I usually only hand those out as a thank you for purchases of three or more items.”
“Tell me people aren’t blaming you for this. We can’t control what animals do.”
“All I know is you better figure out something. Fortunately, Violet only charges us her cost for those coupons, or my profits would have been wiped out yesterday. If this keeps happening, patrons won’t bother coming to my store.”
“Or the other stores,” I concluded. “I understand what you’re saying.”
She exhaled and let her arms hang at her side. “I’m sorry to take it out on you, Jayne. I’m just so frustrated about this.”
“I’ll talk with Sheriff Reed. We’ll figure something out.”
“Talk to River,” India called as I walked away. “It’s his village; he should be the one handling these kinds of things.”
Except River Carr, the billionaire businessman who purchased Whispering Pines from my dad, had people to take care of things like this. When it came to village problems, I was that person. So this problem really was mine to solve, and I had no idea what to do about it. Maybe one of the animal trainers at the circus would have a suggestion?
After completing my loop around the commons, which involved listening to complaints similar to India’s from the other shop owners, I went to the beach to check on things at the marina and decompress by staring out at the lake for a few minutes. Then I cut through the woods and over to the two small schools and tiny library on the west side of the village before making my way back to the station.
River had tried numerous times to get me to come back and work full-time at the sheriff’s station. I had loved being the sheriff during my first year here. Ridding the village of the nastiness that had taken over was very satisfying. The thing was, I loved my boyfriend more. Tripp running our B&B basically by himself combined with the intense schedule I’d been keeping was hurting our relationship. He and I discussed it, and I told River I would work 7:30 to 12:30 Monday through Saturday during the tourist season—the end of May through October. Tripp agreed that hours beyond that could happen for extraordinary circumstances. The rest of my day was devoted to either Pine Time, Tripp, or doing something for myself.
This meant the station needed a second deputy to help Sheriff Reed. Deputy Jagger was a massive man who had about two percent body fat and could function just fine on three hours of sleep. Less if necessary. I learned Jagger was his last name. He wouldn’t share his first and wasn’t even a little amused when I pointed out I could check our employment records. I decided to not press my luck and left it alone.
Like every day, I ended my patrol at 11:30 to give myself time to reply to emails or tend to station tasks. After typing up my patrol notes, I went to Sheriff Reed’s office to discuss the crow problem.
“Birds?” He blinked at me. “It’s Litha weekend, and apparently every rowdy good-old-boy and girl within a two-hundred-mile radius has decided this is the place to hang out. The actual celebration isn’t until Saturday, two days from now, but we’ve already had complaints about all-night parties at the campground and rental cottages.” He covered his face with his hands. “This is going to be a really long season.”
Litha, known to most people as the summer solstice or Midsummer, was the longest day of the year. The tradition here was to stay up all night with bonfires and plenty of food and drink to welcome in the Oak King, who reigned over the lighter months. Or did we welcome the Holly King, who reigned over the darker months and took over the day after Litha when the days slowly became shorter? I could never remember which was right. Either way, it had been a rainy spring, but the forecast for this weekend promised plenty of sunshine. Perfect for holding a really long outdoor party. Not so perfect for the law enforcement personnel who would be on duty.
“These birds are causing a significant problem,” I pressed. “Droppings all around the commons. Plants pulled up in the Pentacle Garden.”
He looked through his fingers at me. “Are the droppings cleaned up and the plants stuck back in the ground?”
“Yes, but the birds are also bombing people with pinecones. They almost got me this morning.”
From beneath my chair, Meeka gave a little ruff.
“They actually hit Meeka.”
“Do you really think this is a law enforcement issue?”
That was a fair question. “No. Probably something for village services.”
“Right, so with everything else we have to deal with, I’d put this on Mr. Powell’s desk. Not sure why I had to walk you through that one.”
Because I had a big problem making decisions right now. I felt off, had for months if I was honest, and because I couldn’t figure out why, I didn’t know how to fix it. Normally, I was a big fan of listening to my gut and trusting my instincts instead of only thinking my way through issues. Or overthinking. Something I’d been doing a lot of lately.
“Mr. Powell is already on it.” Although I should let him know it was officially his issue to deal with.
The sheriff swiped his hands together. “Problem solved. Anything else we need to be concerned about?”
“The shop owners were busy cleaning up the bird messes but fine otherwise. I wandered over to the marina, then over to the schools and library to check on the repairs to the Fairy Path. Rourke says they should be done by early next week.”
The sheriff nodded and shifted into Martin mode. “How’s Rosalyn doing?”
“She’s a wreck but in an excited way.”
He smiled proudly. “Go on home, then. She could probably use your help.”
Except this was her business. Pine Time B&B was only involved to the extent that she held the events on our property. I wouldn’t nitpick right now, however. “Will do, boss. See you tomorrow.”
Before he could change his mind and assign me something annoying, like cleaning the station bathroom, which would be payback for the times I made him do it, Meeka and I left the building.
