Hallow Haven Cozy Mysteries Bundle Books 1-3 by Mara Webb (books to read fiction .txt) 📕

Kate took the tape out of the plastic case and pushed it into the machine before hitting play.

“You cut through me like a knife, beneath the noodle of my heart you are the sauce of white.”

“NOPE!” Kate barked, hitting stop immediately. “They didn’t say lasagna yet, but they were describing it, so it still counts. Strike them off the list.”

“What list?” I asked.

“Oh, did I not mention that we should be keeping track of the good ones?”

“There has only really been one good one so far, and we don’t know who sent it in,” I pointed out.

“True,” Kate nodded.

“Is Miller entering this year?” Effie asked.

“Has he ever?” I replied.

“That guy can hit a few good notes, Sadie. I have heard him sing at the karaoke bar and his cover of ‘Drop it like it’s hot’ would bring a tear to your eye,” Kate teased. “But seriously, I have been pushing him to give it a go and he is not interested. I think he doesn’t want to risk embarrassing himself in front of his new girlfriend.” She winked at me.

“I’m not responding to that,” I hummed. Effie ejected the first cassette and inserted a new one. We tapped our feet along to the tune and waited for the song to really kick in. We waited some more. We waited all the way through a four-minute instrumental intro and then the song ended.

“I’m pretty sure I made it clear that there needed to be singing,” Kate shrugged. “I mean, it was good and all, but they can’t get through with just the music, right?”

“Dude, it’s your competition,” Effie said. “You decide the rules, don’t you?”

“Hmm, I think probably reject that one,” Kate replied. We listened to song after song about lining up at the post office, one whole song complaining about a woman called Molly and another that was a poem read over a rattling tambourine. A delicate, feminine voice was accompanied by a choir in harmony to describe the difficulty of changing a fitted sheet on a mattress.

“Lyrically, 0 out of 10, but they make some good points,” Effie smiled.

Kate inserted a cassette and pressed play.

“This is a good start,” I grinned, nodding along to the guitar.

“Yeah!” Kate agreed. Effie was tapping her hand against her knee in time to the music happily, all the way up to the point when the singing began.

“Turn it off! Turn it off! Turn it off!” Effie shrieked.

“What happened?” I said, jumping out of my seat moments after Effie had done the same.

“It’s Max,” Kate answered as she hit the stop button. “Effie’s ex-boyfriend. I didn’t recognize the band name on the tape, the handwriting is all looped and curly.” Kate squinted at the tiny white label on the cassette and grimaced. “Sorry, Eff.”

Effie was still on her feet, looking as if she had escaped from a burning building. She was almost hyperventilating, and her eyes were wide and wild.

“What should we do?” I asked Kate.

“Give her a minute,” Kate said. “They broke up a year ago but it’s like, you know, a whole thing.” She stopped herself from rolling her eyes, but I could sense that she thought her sister was being overly dramatic.

“We didn’t just break up, we exploded apart!” Effie gasped. “I can’t go over this with you again! I need a drink.”

“There’s a few cans of soda in the fridge down the hall,” Kate said, pointing through the door. Effie stumbled out of the room and Kate turned back to me. “I honestly am surprised you’ve lived here so long, and she hasn’t explained the whole ‘Max’ thing.”

“I haven’t lived here all that long.”

“Long enough. Look, it’s probably more complicated than she has ever let on, but they were together for a couple of years and he’s, you know…” Kate trailed off.

“Did he cheat?” I asked.

“Oh good grief! Why would you guess that? No, that wasn’t what I was going to say at all! He’s human! I just didn’t want you to think that I meant it as an insult. You thought you were human up until a few weeks ago,” Kate laughed.

“True. So they broke up because he was human? Surely, she knew that when they got together,” I said, furrowing my brow.

“I did,” Effie said. I flinched at the sound of her voice; she has silently re-entered the room with a can of cola in her right hand and three candy bars in her left. “It was because he was human that I had to end it. He knew about my magic and, well I guess he thought that he had to try and become something that he wasn’t to keep me.”

Effie tipped cola into her mouth and drank until the can was empty. When she looked back at us, I could see her eyes watering from the fizziness of the drink.

“He tried some magic and hurt himself,” Kate said. Effie nodded frantically before stuffing a whole candy bar into her mouth. “Effie figured he would only be safe if they broke up. She told him to date a human, he didn’t want it to end. Very romantic and sad and awful, but it’s been a whole year and she still won’t say his name out loud. Like it’s a bad curse word or something.”

“That sounds horrible,” I sympathized.

“He was in a band and, well they weren’t all that good, but I supported him. I would recognize his voice anywhere though and that was definitely him. I mean, he sounded better than the last time I heard them perform,” Effie said, frantically unwrapping candy bar number two before pushing it into her mouth all at once.

“Yeah, even the music sounded tighter. They got way better!” Kate said. “I don’t mean to be that guy, but I got dragged to see them a ton when y’all were dating and I used to stuff cotton in my ears because they were dreadful. This sounded great!”

“Yeah…” Effie said. She looked as if she was working through some tough math