I sat there for a moment, stunned. Had that really just happened? Three months without magic. Well, without spells. I was allowed to keep my personal power, which meant at least I could still talk to animals. Still in a daze, I looked around, realized everything was over, and made my way back downstairs. Charlotte had her nose in a book, of course, but Jason and Sophie were practically pacing around the bottom of the stairs.
“So? How did it go?” Sophie asked as soon as she saw me.
“What happened?” Jason asked as well. Charlotte closed her book and looked up enquiringly.
“I’ve lost the ability to do spells for three months,” I said. “I can still speak to animals, though.”
“Good,” Charlotte said. “That’s about the best you can have hoped for. I didn’t want to tell you, but it was written in the book that the shortest sentence ever given in the past was a year of lost magic.”
“Wow, I got off really easily then,” I said, my eyebrows rising. Suddenly, my stomach began to growl. I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. “Come on, let’s get something for dinner and I’ll tell you guys everything that happened.”
Chapter 23
Over the next few days, which were so hectic I was stopping by Betty’s four times a day for coffee, we managed to finally tie all the pieces together.
Jake was arrested, and on the advice of his lawyer, admitted to killing Matt Smith and attempting to kill Jason and I in exchange for a plea deal where he would spend twenty years in prison for all three crimes. I had recorded the entire conversation with Jake, although I edited the recording before giving it to the police so that the part where I used magic to save Jason’s life was no longer on it. I simply said that I must have tapped a button to turn off the recording by accident, and there were no further questions asked.
As for Jake himself, he had no memory of the events that happened at all. Apparently the blow I’d given him with my magic gave him a strong enough hit to the head that he completely forgot about it, which was good; it saved us from having to come up with a plausible story as to what happened.
He told the police he killed Matt Smith over a deal at the property where he’d tried to kill me. He said Matt was always looking for the quick money, the fast-in-fast-out option, and that when they got an offer on the property for thirty percent more than what they had paid, Matt wanted to take it, and Jake didn’t, thinking that the real money would be in developing the property in such an affluent area and selling off luxury townhouses at a huge profit.
They argued multiple times over it, until finally, after a business meeting in Willow Bay that night, Jake completely lost it, realizing that Matt was never going to come around to his line of thinking, and shot him.
Richard Steele was also arrested, as it turned out he had no permit for any of the exotic animals on his property. It turned out Richard’s father had been a very successful farmer, and when he died he left the property and a ton of money to Richard, who spent most of it on alcohol and animals.
But the best update of all came by email from Kirsten about a week after Lucy was taken by the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. I opened up the attached picture and saw Lucy standing with a fifteen-foot-tall adult giraffe. Lucy’s neck was pressed against her mother’s, her eyes closed.
We found the mother a few days ago. One of the locals remembered Lucy being stolen and reported it, although they weren’t able to find the smugglers in time to stop them. However, the local also remembered the mother, and was able to lead us to her. Horray for happy endings!
Tears welled up in my eyes as I read the email. Lucy had found her mother! It was the best ending I could have possibly hoped for. I also found out that Pericot and all of the other animals had been seized from Richard Steele’s farm and were returned back to their native environments. Hehu was well on his way to recovery as well, although it would still be at least a few weeks, maybe even a month before he was fully healed and able to be re-released into the New Zealand wilderness.
Jason also accepted my magical abilities far more readily than I had expected him to. In fact, I’m pretty sure his favorite part was the realization that animals could understand us when we spoke, even though I was the only person with the same ability in reverse. It led to me needing to translate a lot of conversations; Jason was extremely interested in talking to any and every animal we came across, so long as there wasn’t anyone around who could overhear. And the most surprising part was, Jason was the one who finally convinced Bee to let her kittens go and be adopted into good homes.
“I’ve decided you can disperse my kittens into the world,” Bee announced one morning while I was drinking a smoothie for breakfast.
“Oh yeah?” I asked with my eyebrows raised, naturally suspicious. This was Bee, after all.
“Yes,” Bee said, carefully licking one of her front paws. “I was speaking with that man you bring here. Jason, I believe his name is.” I smiled to myself; Bee never used Jason’s name. I thought she considered him competition for her affection.
“Ok. What did you and Jason speak about?”
“Well, he was talking to me about the kittens. And of course, he couldn’t understand my replies, but at one point he mentioned that if I allowed the kittens to be adopted out, I would be acting the way a tree does when it spreads its seeds. First there is a single tree–myself–and I spread the seeds–the kittens–around to other parts of Willow Bay. Then, the kittens have their own kittens, and they’re adopted out, and soon we will have infiltrated the humans from the inside. It is a much better plan than mine, which was to claim this property as my own and work onwards from there.”
“Ah,” I said, trying to bite back a smile. “Yes, that does sound better. So how about it? I’ll start looking for homes for the kittens, and in a few weeks you can send them off to infiltrate more Willow Bay residences?”
“Perfect,” Bee said. “I will go and prepare them for their tasks.”
I made a mental note to make sure the kittens only went to experienced homes. I didn’t want the kittens who had been raised by Bee to go to people who were new to cats. Absolutely not a chance.
It was easier than I expected it to be, getting used to not doing magic. A couple of times I’d forget that I couldn’t do it anymore, and would attempt a spell, only to be momentarily surprised when nothing happened. But all in all, it wasn’t too difficult a change to get used to.
Sophie announced about a week after Jake was arrested that she and Taylor were going to move in together into his place, since it had a view of the water.
“Well,” Jason said when I told him, playing with a loose strand of my hair, “I suppose that opens up some opportunities, doesn’t it?”
I smiled. “You want to come live at my place? You’re totally welcome, of course. I don’t think Charlotte will have any problem with it.”
“That sounds good. We can rent out my place to someone while I live with you. Or maybe we can tear it down and build a modern glass-and-steel monstrosity, that sounds like your sort of thing,” he teased, and I punched him lightly on the arm.
“I was totally on board until that last sentence,” I replied. I knew Charlotte would have no problem with Jason moving in; she was gone half the time, and even though she denied it I knew she very much enjoyed being referred to as Hermione by Jason all the time.
“How about it then? I come live with you?”
“I’d like that,” I said with a smile, leaning in and pressing myself against Jason’s chest. As I listened to his heart beating, I closed my eyes and savored the moment. Things were definitely looking up.