Elves' Bells Read online

  Elves’ Bells

  ARC COPY - NOT FOR SALE

  Nova Nelson

  Copyright © 2019 by Nova Nelson

  All rights reserved. FFS Media and Nova Nelson reserve all rights to Elves’ Bells. This work may not be shared or reproduced in any fashion without permission of the publisher and/or author. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Cover Design © FFS Media LLC

  Illustration elements by Kerry McQuaide

  Elves’ Bells / Nova Nelson -- 1st ed.

  www.eastwindwitches.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  While you wait…

  More books from Eastwind

  About the Author

  Elves’ Bells

  ARC COPY - NOT FOR SALE

  Nova Nelson

  FFS Media

  Chapter One

  The clock on the wall of the tearoom had hardly passed eleven, and Fifth Wind witch Ruby True’s morning had already involved banishing two spirits. For a Tuesday, that seemed a little much, so she hardly blamed herself for being cranky. And the fact that Zax Banderfield had been scheduled to meet her five minutes ago and still hadn’t arrived wasn’t elevating her mood, either.

  The West Wind witch Harley Hardtimes, owner of A New Leaf where Ruby now waited, caught her eye from behind the counter. He raised his chin inquisitively as he held up a piping kettle. Her initial impulse was to wave him off, but, sure, why not have a fresh pot? She nodded as pleasantly as she could muster within the bounds of her mood.

  The man had a few decades on her, and while she by no means considered him a father—anyone who’d met her own wretched father would understand why that might be considered an insult—Harley was definitely fatherly in the traditional sense. But he was also rather motherly in that he had a nurturing nature about him that she liked, if not loved.

  Perhaps that was simply a result of him being a West Wind witch—one of the terramancers’ innate strengths was being able to anticipate the needs of others and know how to fulfill those needs.

  And surely it didn’t hurt his desire to take good care of her that he made quite a bit of money from her regular visits.

  Ruby wondered unproductively what it would feel like to be a West Wind witch. Would she be in moods like this less often? What about if she were a North Wind witch, her head chronically in the clouds, paying no mind to who did and didn’t show up for tea dates? Or a South Wind witch, a bold defender of the vulnerable, who wouldn’t allow herself to sit here quietly when she could march right up to Fluke Mountain and call Zax Banderfield out on his rudeness? Or perhaps an East Wind witch…

  No, being stood-up would bother her even more if she were an East Wind witch with their desire for approval and strict adherence to social conventions.

  But in the end, it didn’t really matter what it would be like if she were anything else, because she was a Fifth Wind: an enigma to the world, terrifying to some, and in times like these, indecipherable on the surface while roiling just below it.

  Boy, she was in a mood. She decided to blame the annoying spirits for it and move on.

  Along with the kettle and a fresh infuser of her favorite tea blend, Harley brought over a small meat pie. She didn’t care much for the pastry, but it wasn’t for her. It was Clifford’s special treat.

  To the average observer, Ruby’s familiar, a giant red hellhound, might have appeared asleep. And perhaps Clifford had been somewhere in that twilight realm, but his nose never took a break.

  As the savory aroma of the hot pie had moved closer, he’d smacked his jowls and raised his shaggy head. And as Clifford’s nose zeroed in on the scent, it also became more pronounced to Ruby, and she almost wished Harley had grabbed one for her as well.

  But she would have had to pay for that, and Cliff’s was always on the house. That was just how it went with the hellhound. Most people in the little town of Eastwind never got past their initial terror of seeing a hellhound outside of the Deadwoods. But those who did and got to know the scruffy guy always had a soft spot for him. And that earned him some of the best food in town, at no charge to her.

  As Harley set down Ruby’s refreshments, he asked, “Waiting on a client?”

  It was a harmless question, of course. This was where she usually met her potential clients, those unlucky enough to have one ghost too many in their lives, or who at least believed they did. Oftentimes the books falling off the shelves or missing keys had more to do with having children or cats in the home and less to do with a spirit from the beyond.

  Hence her non-refundable consultation fee. She may spend a lot of time in spiritual realms, but she was still a down-to-earth businesswoman.

  But today she wasn’t waiting on a client. She was waiting on a handsome werebear. She was waiting on her date. And so the question of whom she was expecting merely reactivated her grouchiness.

  “No. I’m waiting on a friend. Or I was. I might stop waiting on him and start heading to the library for a few new reads.”

  Harley nodded and presented her with a sympathetic frown. “If he’s a no show, at least you can take heart that he’s a fool. Any man who’d stand you up clearly doesn’t have the sense to keep up with you anyway.”

  Ruby chuckled, pleased at how much the compliment improved her mood. “I’m sure he has a good excuse. He has a whole sleuth of werebears to look after, and you know how much trouble they can get themselves into.”

  Harley’s eyes narrowed. “Zax Banderfield? Is that who you’re waiting on?”

  “It… was.”

  He nodded. “He’s a good one, I’d have expected better of him than leaving a lady waiting. Can I do anything to cheer you?”

  She nodded toward the kettle. “I think this will do fine. Thank you.”

  Clifford finished the last crumbs of the pie, smacked his lips, and then laid his head back down again.

  Just as Harley made for the counter again, the familiar ring of a mail bell sounded outside the entrance to the tearoom to announce a new message. Through the front window, Ruby spied a spotted owl ruffle its feathers as it settled in on the perch above the letterbox.

  The proprietor adjusted his trajectory to go retrieve the correspondence.

  In her old life, back before she’d died and woke up in Eastwind, Ruby had heard that every time a bell rang, an angel got its wings.

  However, now she knew better, considering she was friends with the town’s only angel.

  Ruby watched as Harley took the slip of parchment from the delivery owl’s claw and unrolled it. He frowned for only a second and then headed back inside, making straight for Ruby’s table.

  “It�
�s for you.”

  Her Insight perked up and she knew even before reading it what it would say.

  However, seeing the apology and explanation in Zax’s own handwriting was somewhat comforting. Amid his busy schedule—the same one that apparently prevented him from keeping this commitment—he had taken the time to sit and write this.

  That was something, she supposed.

  She sighed and rolled up the letter, making an effort to smile at Harley to demonstrate that she wasn’t heartbroken.

  Only once he left her did she have a moment to consider whether she was actually heartbroken. No, that seemed dramatic. She enjoyed Zax’s company, and the two of them had been seeing more of each other over the last couple of months, but this was by no means the first time their work had interfered with their time together. And when one found meaning in one’s work, like both she and the head of the werebear sleuth did, then that came first.

  “He should have sent word earlier,” Clifford said through their psychic connection.

  “Maybe he did and the owl was slow.”

  Clifford grunted his skepticism.

  Thankfully, Ruby was never without a book, and she reached in her large cloth bag and pulled out her current read in progress, The Potent Prince. She only had a few pages left in the epilogue of this one. The prince and his love, having finally overcome the many malevolent obstacles keeping them apart, were ready to consummate their marriage.

  In other words, it was the best part of the book, and while she hadn’t planned to enjoy it in a public place, she did find a thrill in the idea. No one need know what the red-haired, middle-aged, Fifth Wind witch in her head-to-toe black garb was reading. If anyone asked why she looked flushed, she’d simply attribute it to those pesky shifting hormones. That would teach them for prying. And then she would continue reading.

  She made sure to firmly shut off her connection with Clifford before diving in—she’d forgotten to do that in the past, and little mental images had slipped through, causing him to growl at her until she snapped out of it and was able to keep her sordid thoughts to herself.

  But just as she was thoroughly losing herself in the story, three noisy witches entered the tearoom like a tidal wave of nonsense. Their high-pitched voices were as pleasant as tambourines right next to her ears as they prattled on about the latest Coven gossip.

  While she did love a solid bit of gossip, especially if it reinforced her own feelings about those in charge of the town, now was not the time.

  She tried again to focus on her reading, but when they settled at the table right next to hers, she muttered, “Oh, for fang’s sake,” marked her page with a thin ribbon, and then shut the book.

  Her day was not getting any less obnoxious. It was almost as if Mother Earth and the Goddess Above had conspired to test her, to see how far she could be pushed before…

  Before what, she wondered. What was the worst she could do?

  “Raise the dead,” Clifford supplied.

  She’d let her mental barrier slip, but that was fine now that she wasn’t reading any longer.

  “True. Raising the dead is unpleasant business.” She’d done it once before in her earlier years in town, back when she hadn’t yet refined or fully explored her powers. The whole thing had been an accident, and she’d done her best to make amends with the family of the deceased whose expensive funeral she’d unequivocally ruined by carelessly letting her mind wander into the body of their grandmother without realizing it. It was only when she’d realized that she was the reason Grandma had jumped out of the casket and begun tap-dancing down the aisles of mourners that Ruby was able to rip her consciousness free.

  Unfortunately, the dead collapsing in the middle of a dance routine was only slightly less traumatic for the onlooking children than when she’d jumped out of her supposed final resting place to begin with.

  From the table next to her one of the three witches cackled, and the noise put Ruby on edge. Plenty of people cackled, but when a witch did it, it just seemed so… stereotypical.

  “I tell you, Gladys,” said the witch, who by the look of her brown dress was a West Wind, “it’s quite the revitalization! This could be huge for Eastwind. Tourism from Avalon has been on a decline over the last decade, but a vibrant art scene could be just the thing to breathe new life into it.”

  The witch, presumably Gladys, said, “If it were quality art, sure. But that’s hardly what I would call the theater troops who have passed through so far.”

  “At the present, sure,” said the third witch, whose red robes hinted that she might be a South Wind, “but it’s a work in progress, so to speak. Every creative movement starts off somewhat crudely and has to go through many iterations to become refined.”

  “Even still,” said Gladys, “the number of iterations necessary to turn the local productions into true art, well, it could be decades, perhaps even centuries.”

  Ruby snickered into her teacup. Gladys and she might be on the same page regarding Eastwind’s supposedly blossoming theater scene.

  The South Wind said, “Oh, it’s not so bad as that. I caught a one-witch show the other day that was quite good.”

  Gladys conceded the possibility with a nod. “Logically speaking, if every actor in town is horrendous at the job, then a show with fewer actors would be a better show.”

  While the other two witches hemmed and hawed about that, Ruby grinned and even imagined befriending Gladys someday.

  Local theater had become a scourge on the town over the last few months. It had started when a group of the wealthier Coven members had decided that Eastwind lacked culture. It may have even been one of the witches at the table next to her who had spearheaded that crazy notion. And the proposed solution was even crazier: build a stage in the Eastwind Emporium, the marketplace in the heart of town.

  Whatever the original inspiration for the placement, the result was that at various points throughout the day, one could no longer go about one’s shopping without the actors’ grandiose voices, magically amplified, assaulting one’s thoughts with whatever rubbish they chose to recite.

  Ruby couldn’t stand it. A quiet town was a happy town, as far as she was concerned. Adding noise that no one asked for was a public nuisance. Ever since a team of leprechauns began assembling the stage, she’d secretly dreamed about a South Wind witch losing his or her temper and setting fire to it once and for all. If pyromancy had been within her skillset instead of necromancy, she would have already done it, perhaps disguising it as a somewhat powerful sneeze that got the best of her.

  It surprised her to think that anyone might actually enjoy the performances on that stage. Mostly, when she’d been unfortunate enough to time her errands with one of the halfhearted productions, the small audience wore expressions of puzzlement. It was as if each person were trying to unlock the riddle of why in Earth’s sake a group of adults would dress in silly costumes and parade around on what was little more than a wooden platform with musty curtains, reciting lines no one in their right mind would ever say. Or perhaps the transfixed audience was simply trying to figure out why anyone would expect to be paid for such a thing.

  At least those were the questions Ruby had about it all. She didn’t mind the occasional play back in her old world, but Gladys wasn’t kidding when she said the level of talent in the Emporium had room for improvement.

  As if reading her mind, the West Wind witch said, “Oh, but I heard today’s performance will be quite something! The players have come all the way from Fallia and are known throughout the most refined realms!”

  The South Wind clapped her hands excitedly. “We should definitely see it! What time does it start?”

  “Eleven fifty, if I remember correctly,” replied the West Wind. “But according to the flyer I saw for it over at the Pixie Mixie, they’ll be in town for a week. So if we miss it today, we could catch one of the other shows.”

  Ruby looked up at the giant clock on the wall behind the counter. With a start, she real
ized it was just past eleven thirty.

  If she was to finish today’s errands in the Emporium before the play started, she needed to get a move on.

  “Up, up, up!” she said to Clifford, who took his time getting to his feet. She needed a fresh cut of beef, a pound of potatoes, and a bunch of carrots if she was going to have what she needed for the stew she planned for supper, and the butcher was on the opposite side of the Emporium as her favorite vegetable cart. Oh! And she needed rosemary, too. Ruby’d almost forgotten that her neighbor Lilian’s feline familiar had decided her rosemary bush was his new toilet and had urinated and clawed at the poor thing until it finally gave out and shriveled up. It would be back the next year—rosemary had its own way of rising from the dead—and she’d be sure to lay out some cat-repelling charms around it when that time came. But for now, she was forced to buy her rosemary. How humiliating.

  And Lilian hadn’t even apologized.

  She waved goodbye to Harley, left the appropriate coins on the table, and hurried out of A New Leaf and into the bright sunshine, praying—or as close to it as she ever came—that she could be safely back home before the first monologue.

  Unfortunately for her, hardly a moment after the side street opened to the bustling marketplace, she ran into the last person she wanted to see.

  Chapter Two

  … Or maybe he was the first person she wanted to see. The jury was perpetually hung on that matter.

  Floating next to Ezra Ares were canvas bags overflowing with a mishmash of objects—stones, berries, ribbons, and even a few draw-string satchels that wriggled anxiously. The moment the South Wind’s eyes found Ruby’s, he broke into a wide grin, the same one that could sell matches to a dragon and kept business booming at Ezra’s Magical Outfitters.