Page 11 of Hexes and Hiccups (Mystery In A Bottle #3)

D aisy

Daisy wasn’t one for staying up late. Ever since she was a kid, she always preferred the early mornings to the late evenings.

There was something about the smell of freshly brewed coffee and sizzling bacon that made her excited for whatever was to come.

The sun would shine upon her bedroom as she came to life, beckoning her out of bed with a warm and gentle embrace.

The nighttime, though loved by many magic users, left Daisy feeling rather cold beneath the moonlight.

Hecate’s magic seeped into her, then, but it still made Daisy homesick for another time. For the morning.

Despite being well into her fifties, Daisy tossed and turned in bed for hours before flicking on her bedroom light, and sitting up straight.

Her mind raced far too much for her to settle, to count the sheep and try to get some well-needed shut-eye.

Every time she closed her eyes, scarlet red words bounced across her vision, reminding her of the conflicts that were tearing apart her sleepy little town.

Riven’s petrified state haunted her dreams, now accompanied by the eerie statue of Fern Harper.

And, once again, Daisy was brought back to the fear that she’d experienced from Fern’s daughter's disappearance.

Though she was no longer a helpless young woman, Daisy was riddled with unease even within the safety of her own home.

Daisy’s hand gravitated towards the empty space beside her.

The bed she slept in was no longer big enough for two, but had a bit of room upon either side.

Sometimes, when she felt sorrowful and alone, Daisy would lean towards one side and imagine a breathing chest beneath her, the familiar scent of Gary’s cologne slipping past her memory.

Recently, as she did the same thing, she was more inclined to imagine Ethan beside her.

Either way, it left her no longer feeling so dreadfully alone.

Since the investigation began, Daisy had been plagued by the feeling that something else was afoot beneath it all.

There were the statues growing in number and the rumors being left for the entire town to find, but there had to be another thing.

Something that she had not yet seen, something that alluded her skillfully.

Daisy grew more frustrated than anything, and perhaps it was that mounting irritation that kept her from having a deep sleep.

She could only think about the fear in Tessa’s face when the Council blatantly admitted to believing the empath-in-training was the culprit behind Riven’s petrification.

She could only remember Anne’s sorrowful wails, the despair written so plainly in her face.

She could only remember the animal lover’s hands shaking at the idea of her volunteer privileges being taken from her, the ability to see strays be adopted suddenly out of her hands.

They all deserved more, even Rebecca and Marigold.

Whatever they had done before didn’t mean they should be plagued with rumors now, their secrets displayed for all to see.

No one deserved that sort of treatment – a fact that Daisy was quickly coming to terms with.

Daisy fluffed her pillows and snatched up her current read, Bridge to Terabithia .

Though she had read it plenty of times before, it remained a yearly pleasure that she readily gave herself.

While the beautiful descriptions within the precious book could easily put her to sleep, it couldn’t distract her from the things she didn’t understand now and everything that awaited her tomorrow.

Daisy snapped the book shut and put it back on her nightstand, seconds away from flicking the light back off.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

The sharp doorbell rang through the house, followed by a few knocks against the front door. Daisy shot upright in the bed, finding the analog clock immediately.

1:15 am.

Daisy pressed her lips together. Who could be knocking on her door so late in the evening?

She threw herself out of bed when the buzzing came again.

Her feet hit the cold floor and sent a shock through her system.

Daisy yanked her robe over her shoulders, almost tripping as she went down the narrow staircase.

Daisy glanced through the thick windows beside the front door and felt her shoulders sag.

“Tessa Hala,” Daisy breathed as she opened the door. “It is way past your bedtime.”

Not waiting for an invitation, Tessa slipped inside the house immediately, her silk robe brushing by Daisy’s legs.

Whipping around, Tessa revealed two bundles in her hands.

They were both identical bottles of red wine – Daisy’s favorite.

Candy bars poked out of Tessa’s deep pockets, a few already clattering to the floor.

They wore similar pajamas, an entirely amusing coincidence.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Tessa asked.

Daisy shook her head. “You?”

“What does it look like?”

Tessa spun around towards the stairs, already running up to Daisy’s bedroom.

Daisy eagerly followed, suddenly feeling like a child who wandered in on a surprise sleepover.

The pair pelted into Daisy’s room and shut the door, already ripping open the wine bottles and not daring to bother with a glass.

The unease that had once kept Daisy awake slipped out of her for an hour or two, the wine entering her mind and bringing her into a comfortable haze.

Beside her, Tessa drank just as much and indulged in her candy bars, leaving wrappers on the floor.

Daisy greedily ate a few chocolates alongside her, not caring about the heartburn or stomach ache that might plague her in the morning.

Daisy wanted to feel like a child again, free from the investigation that burdened them now.

“Remember sophomore year?” Tessa was in the middle of saying, already laughing before she had the chance to say the funny part. Her cheeks were sharply red, mimicking what Daisy probably looked like. The alcohol hit them rather quickly in their older age. “The first time we got drunk?”

“You call it drunk,” Daisy said, “ I call it the placebo effect.”

“You still believe that?”

Daisy laughed heartily. “We drank margarita mix, Tess.”

“But –”

“Whatever we thought happened was from our brilliant imaginations.”

The memories plagued them rather easily in their drunken haze.

It was easy to drift back to an easier time, to remember when things weren't as difficult and were a bounty of fun. Though Daisy wouldn’t really want to go back to those years after living so long as an adult, she still missed the carefree nature of childhood.

She missed not needing to handle things herself, having another adult to turn to when things became far too hard.

Daisy only wished she’d relished the time more, remembered her mother’s guidance in a time during which she could hardly see in front of her.

With Daisy’s favorite Madonna album playing softly on her aged radio, they laid across her bed sleepily, too exhausted to clean the chocolate from their faces or brush the wine from their teeth.

They merely laid beside each other, staring up at the empty ceiling and watching the ceiling fan swirl.

Daisy felt tempted with sleep for a few moments, but was suddenly brought back to the matter at hand, her eyes glancing towards Tessa every now and then.

The giddiness they once had no longer lingered over them.

There was something solemn, something dark hovering over their hearts.

“My empath professor would tell me to remain positive,” Tessa suddenly whispered. “It strengthens the magic, apparently.”

Daisy’s head rolled over to the side to watch her. “ Hm ?”

“But how can I?” Tessa murmured, her brow furrowed. “How can I when the cards are all stacked up against me?”

“The Council believes what is easy,” Daisy replied. “That doesn’t mean it’s the actual truth, Tess.”

“What happens when there’s no other option to turn to?”

Daisy shook her head, the wine rendering her fuzzy. “I don’t understand.”

“We’ll go see Malric,” Tessa whispered. “And we’ll find that he isn’t guilty. We’ll keep searching, only to come up empty handed. All that will remain is me and that note, and Riven’s petrified state. They’ll pin it on me.”

Daisy rolled over to face her. “Why are you so hung up on this? You know as well as I do that you didn’t turn Riven to stone. You didn’t do it to Fern either – you’ve been by my side all this time! The Council –”

“The Council has the final say at the end of the day.” Tessa’s expression grew cold, her cheeks still a bright red.

“And when they give their word, it is what will be. And you,” she turned over, her eyes glossy and sad, “you will be a Coven Inquisitor still. Won’t you have to follow their word? Enact their law?”

Daisy smiled sadly, reaching forward to push strands of Tessa’s short and spiky hair out of her eyes. “At the end of the day,” she whispered, “I follow my heart. I follow what’s right. And I know you didn’t do this, Tess.”

Tessa leaned against her hand, her eyes growing wide and fearful all of a sudden. She laid there in silence till the courage gathered in her throat, the next words tumbling out in a rush, the lingering effects of the wine still holding onto her tongue.

“I thought about cheating.”

“What?”

“On the empath tests,” Tessa whispered, her voice so quiet the words barely reached Daisy, who was only a few inches away from her. “I’ve thought about cheating.”

“Oh, Tess, that’s –”

“I-It’s just the pressure, you know?” Tessa quickly blurted, as if she needed to defend herself.

“I’ve been training for years. My mother was the most skilled empath Willowbrook had seen in decades.

All I ever wanted was to follow after her, but it seems I’ve only fallen more behind.

I wouldn’t cheat on them, you know.” Tessa shook her head.

“But…I thought about it. More than once.”

Daisy reached for her friend, tucking one arm beneath her head to hold her close. Tessa let out a heavy sigh of relief, her eyes already falling shut.

“I haven’t told anyone that,” Tessa whispered. “All this time, I thought the Council must have known. They must have been able to tell.”

“If we all got in trouble for thinking about cheating on a test, no one would be around anymore.” Daisy felt herself smile sadly.

“Everyone considers it, Tess. You’re only human, after all.

Thinking about it doesn’t make you a cheater, it doesn’t make you a villain or unsaveable.

It makes you…well, you . And there’s nothing wrong with that. ”

Tessa’s shoulders trembled as she quietly cried, her face buried in Daisy’s neck.

They held each other silently, as if the other might fall without it.

Daisy remembered how she had been looking towards the other side of the bed, imagining another sleeping person there beside her, and grew grateful that Hecate managed to answer her wishes.

Now, she had Tessa beside her, and in the end, that was all she needed.

“You’re not a bad person,” Daisy whispered into Tessa’s hair. The empath’s chest rose and fell as she easily sunk into a comfortable sleep. Daisy repeated the words a few times, hoping they clung to Tessa’s mind as she dreamt.

While Tessa soundly slept, Daisy stared up at the ceiling fan.

It swirled and swirled, resembling the unrest happening within her own mind.

Though she craved some sort of relief from the exhaustion she had been feeling Daisy could not fall into a deep sleep.

She could only stare, her mind wandering about everything that had happened so far.

There were no answers to her questions, no easy way forward.

The rumors still lingered around Willowbrook.

The culprit had brought so much negativity and darkness to people that were only full of light and goodwill.

There were now two townspeople rendered into statues, their fates unknown for the time being.

Everything remained a mystery, and Daisy needed to figure it out before the Council decided that Tessa would be the culprit they were searching for.

The questions lingered over her head as that eerie feeling returned to her, the idea of someone watching her from within her own home too great for her to ignore.